


Restless Spirits

by cystemic



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-03-08 19:44:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18901393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cystemic/pseuds/cystemic
Summary: Lieutenant Kristin Ortega returns to the Alcatraz resleeving facility to pick up Elias Ryker from holding.





	1. Chapter 1

"Lieutenant Kristin Ortega," she told the receptionist. A thirty-something-year-old woman with a pale complexion and clinically sterile expression. "Bay City PD."

The receptionist stared at her blankly for a few seconds, no recognition behind the dead grey eyes. Working at the human waste factory had that effect on people.

"Can I help you?" she said, her voice bordering on synthetic but there was no mistaking the apprehension toward the badge on Ortega's belt.

Kristin brushed a curling piece of black hair behind her ear impatiently but didn't swear. Instead, she took a deep breath.

"I'm here to pick up Elias Ryker," she said evenly. "I'm his release contact."

The receptionist lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise but then the apprehension in her features quickly evaporated. This wasn't an official visit from the police. It was business as usual. So she tapped the control interface behind the counter and a holographic datacoil sprang to life.

"I'll need a DNA sample to confirm identity," the receptionist said stiffly.

The panel before Ortega lit up and she licked her thumb before keying it. The DNA scanner quickly recognised the long sequence of genetic code in the tiny glob of spit and brought up a profile in the receptionist's datacoil for her dead-eyed perusal. She seemed to find everything in order and gently bobbed her head.

"Are you armed?" She glanced at Ortega.

Kristin shook her head. The last time she tried to bring a gun into Alcatraz hadn't gone well and she didn't want to make a scene. Again. Her firearms were waiting in the hovercar.

"Well, alright. Security's just through here." The receptionist gestured to a large and obvious corridor with bulky security guards blocking the entrance. "Once you're through, Arrivals Hall is on your right."

"When's he due?" Ortega's words shuddered a little.

The receptionist looked up at her testily but then sighed, a glimmer of humility in the bluish grey eyes. Hazel eyes, Kristin now realised as she flicked at the datacoil.

"He's in the queue," she said. "Number 23."

"Thanks," Ortega smiled weakly. "Can you tell me-" she began but faltered.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow.

Was it worth asking? Would she even have clearance? Did she really want to know?

"-is Takeshi Kovacs in the queue?"

The receptionist's eyes flitted toward the screen.

"I'm afraid you're not authorised to know that, Lieutenant," she said.

"It's on the screen right now, isn't it?" Ortega reached over the counter to see but the receptionist quickly slammed the datacoil shut with the flat of her palm.

"Come back with a warrant." She activated defences on the window and a grid appeared to lock Ortega out.

"Pshhh." She blew a lock of hair out her face. "Fine."

She crossed her arms and pouted but the receptionist was already gesturing to the next person in line.

Ortega sauntered away from the depressing procession of stone-faced people behind her and made her way into the security corridor. Two bulky men grunted something and she stuck out her arms for them to scan. She had no weapons, of course, but the right arm still registered in angry little beeps on security scanners.

Kristin released an exasperated breath and rolled her eyes.

"It's a prosthetic." She pointed to the arm she'd used to block a katana a week ago, break her Captain's back a few days before that.

The guards waved their wands over the artificial limb like primitive shamans having discovered some Elder Civilisation tech several hundred years too advanced for them to comprehend. They peered at her suspiciously through narrowed eyes and asked for her ID.

"Look, I'm a cop. Alright?" Ortega swept aside her jacket to demonstrate the badge. “Lieutenant Ortega. Bay City PD. I'm here to pick up...” She paused. “Elias Ryker.”

The scrutiny continued but a few head shakes and shrugs and unsatisfied grimaces were all the resistance they could affordably muster before allowing her inside.

Kristin shrugged the jacket back on and wrapped her arms around herself as she stepped into the gloomy space, shivering, from cold or from nerves, she couldn't tell.

It had been raining outside, as it had been the last time she visited and the times before that. An eerie feeling of deja vu settled in as her boots squeaked over the epoxy floors. Alcatraz playing up to its reputation as the last place you wanted to end up.

Kristin slowly made her way to the Arrivals Hall. An ambiguous name, for an ambiguous place since only some of the people resleeved today would be criminals. The rest would be innocents who died, stack-retrievable but without any decent sleeve insurance. The state would provide a compatible body from the store of criminals in its capacity but the best sleeves were sold off to the highest bidder by a warden on the take. No doubt, a few opportunistic buyers would be coming out of those doors as well.

Ortega swore softly in Spanish at the thought. The narrowed eyes of beefy security guards honed in on her as she crossed the threshold with her habitual policing stomp but she ignored them.

The building was old in parts. They'd kept the stone grey walls and the space between was still punctuated by a grid of evenly spaced rectangular pillars that rose up to the high ceiling every five metres. But the floors were a smooth epoxy pour. The benches were cold grey ferrosteel like the ones at Bay City Central Station and the few windows that peppered the top of the walls were the same vacuum insulated glass they used on space shuttles.

Outside, the winds and rain could be seen raging, like the hundreds of faithful that protested the successful passing of Article 653. Ortega was glad the windows were too high and too insulated to make out their zealous screams as she sat down on one of the rock hard benches and shifted, trying to make herself comfortable.

She tapped at the tactile bracelet on her wrist and checked her ONI for messages in her corneal display but it remained silent. She was still on paid vacation and the long chain of condolences had fizzled out earlier in the week. There wasn't much anyone could think to say about the whole sordid state of affairs. And most of them had elected to say nothing at all.

Number 23 in the queue, Kristin thought absently, jutting her elbows out over the seat back.

The sleeving facilities at Alcatraz worked diligently from 9 to 5, but there was a limit to the amount they could pump out, and the number of workers that did it. No more than fifteen sleeves walked through the big double doors every hour. She could see the thick slabs of steel at end of a long corridor in the north west corner of the Arrivals Hall. Just past Discharge where the papers were sorted.

Fifteen at a time.

Ortega was one batch too early. Not bad, considering how long it took last time. She wasn't exactly on the guest list when she’d come to pick up Ryker’s sleeve, not knowing who’d be inside.

Her eyes stumbled over the crowded benches at the far end of the room, closest to the doors without standing in the corridor. Almost forty people were sitting in cathedral-like silence, waiting.

Wives, husbands, children, parents, friends.

But the most anxious were the lovers. Sitting alone, waiting for their other half to come through those doors with a different face or even the same one. It didn't matter. Because it wasn't the person in storage that changed, Kristin now realised. Digital human freight would keep their personality and memories in tact, identical to the day they went inside, while the people on the outside, the ones still living had to...

Ortega turned her head a little too swiftly to shake the thought loose and something in her neck cracked painfully enough to make her hiss. She muttered as she rubbed under her ponytail and stared at her boots. But even the soft Spanish curses were eerily audible and echoed in the cavernous space.

"You okay?" a woman asked quietly.

Ortega grimaced and let her hand drop as she looked up. A sixty something year old African woman with kind eyes and a kinder smile. There were still liberal amounts of black in her grey hair but the lines on her face were oddly few in number.

"I'm fine," Ortega gave a strained smile. She was still sore after everything that happened.

"You sure, honey? You look like someone pushed you into a fighter pit," the woman chuckled warmly.

"Funny you should say that," Ortega grinned genuinely. But the smile quickly evaporated as the words reminded her of Kovacs.

She shook her head and looked over at the doors, hidden down the end of the long corridor, just off the Arrivals Hall.

"How long have you been waiting?" she asked quietly.

"Few hours," the woman replied with a little admonition. "They keep pushing him back."

"Why?" Ortega turned her head abruptly and regretted doing so again. “Ay, cabron…”

"You been to the hospital recently?" the woman looked over at her with concern.

"As a matter of fact, I have," Ortega replied. She'd maxed out the tab Kovacs left open but it wasn't bottomless. Doc said she just needed time to heal and sent her packing.

"So how come they keep pushing your... I'm sorry." She stopped and held out her hand. "Kristin Ortega."

"Caroline Aducipalo." She shook it.

"Nice to meet you."

A few heads turned when they heard the name Ortega. Gleaned from the news or the streets, word had spread about her partnering up with Ryker to take down the Fightdrome. More genteel types would know that she was involved in the recent scandal at Head in the Clouds as well as the investigation into Laurens Bancroft’s suicide, but these people clearly didn't run in those circles. She stowed their looks with a curt glare.

"Waiting for my son," Caroline said on the bench opposite. "Boy's late to his own resleeving. Can you believe it?" She chuckled wearily.

"How come?"

"Don't know." She shrugged. "They told me to be here at noon."

Ortega checked her corneal time display. It was well after noon. But she didn't want to be the one to tell this woman her son could have already come and gone, ignoring the family sitting here, waiting for him to reveal his new sleeve.

"What about you, dear?"

Ortega shrugged.

"Looks like I'm here early."

"You don't seem too happy about it," Caroline noted. "Or very worried."

True.

Fear, uneasiness and anxiety were palpable in the Arrivals Hall. But what Kristin was feeling was more akin to irritation. A knot in her stomach, chords tightening in her throat. Her teeth clenched unpleasantly and her brow was furrowed. She was angry, she realised suddenly and tried to unclench.

"Not your first time?"

"No," she said honestly.

Ortega had been sitting in a similar position when they released Ryker's sleeve a few weeks ago. Far more tense and worried, waiting for a stranger she recognised by body but not by name...

"Guess I just wasn't expecting it so soon, you know?" she said out loud.

"Parole?" Caroline asked kindly, happy to find someone to talk to after who knew how long in silence.

"Falsely accused," Ortega said, smiling. "He's been exonerated."

"That's great," Caroline's wide mouth widened into a wider smile. "Right?"

Kristin nodded, chewing her lip.

"Yep. Fantastic."

"Is there someone else?" Caroline asked knowingly.

Ortega frowned.

 _"Pheromones,"_ Kovacs had called it. _"Sleeve residue."_

He made it sound like a disease, a toxic sludge oozing from the bottom of Ryker's lungs after years of smoking. Just another bad habit that he had to deal with. But love wasn't anything like nicotine addiction. Only a heartless Envoy could think so crassly of it.

"No," Kristin said. "Just the one."

"There's never just one, sweetheart," Caroline said, words as smooth as honey.

Ortega studied the dark brown eyes and found a mischievous glint behind them that didn't seem typical of a sixty year old.

"You know from experience?"

"How else do we learn?" Caroline chuckled heartily, breaking the tension in the cathedral-like silence of the Arrivals Hall.

"There's never just one," she said when the echo died down, a memory passing behind those deep brown eyes. "Just the one you choose."

Kristin chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment before shaking her head.

"I don't have a choice,” she said finally.

Caroline cocked a curious brow in response but then the double doors at the end of the Arrivals Hall automatically opened and latched into the walls.

Heads turned to see the slow procession of the newly resleeved drifting down the corridor with mindless and somehow unnatural movements. They were different ethnicities, ages and genders but all of them shared that same look of mild shock. Like a bomb had gone off silently somewhere and these were the victims, wandering out of the wreckage.

The people waiting stayed in place. A few rose from their seats but recognised none of the strangers approaching and froze in anticipation.

"Fallah?" a man uttered, slowly shuffling toward a woman seated close by.

She slowly got to her feet.

"Jed?" Her eyes widened. "Is that you?"

He swallowed. His sleeve was a middle aged male with an unflattering build, black hair and caucasian enough to drastically contrast Fallah's dark skin and superior height.

He shuffled forward like a ghost.

"It's me," he said softly.

They didn't embrace straight away, just staring for a time. Similar interactions were playing out around the room and Ortega turned away as several grown men began to cry, realising what they would now have to live with.

She turned to find Caroline had left the bench and walked off like a heat-seeking missile, clamping into the arm of an Asian man with an itchy neck and vacant expression.

Data-rat, Ortega recognised. He was still searching for jacks that were clearly not present in his new sleeve.

"Let's go home, Samwell," Caroline said sweetly and he nodded.

"Yes, ma." It sounded younger than the sleeve looked.

Caroline smiled none-the-less, perhaps relieved this new body would keep her son out of the Array until he found the money for new dataports.

She waved to Ortega on the way out and she smiled back, watching them bustle through the double door exit. A few people followed them, without approaching anyone, without speaking or caring and Kristin's heart skipped a beat. She began frantically searching their faces for a spark of recognition but none came, none turned or even looked at her. And suddenly she felt like she’d missed him, like he'd walked straight past her and out of her life. Her heart skipped a beat and the gut-renching feeling of never seeing him again gripped her stomach tight.

No. She looked down at her boots. If he was gone, he was gone.

But where? The question lingered.

 _"I don't know,"_ she heard Kovacs say. _"I don't know anything..."_

"Sure, you fucking don't..." Kristin wrapped her arms around herself and leaned onto her knees.

The thought was infuriating. Like he'd left her out of the loop again. Left her in the dark.

That knowing Envoy smirk he always wore before wandering off to do something stupid crossed her mind and she shook her head.

He’d done this on purpose. He didn’t have to return Ryker’s sleeve. It was technically his property after Bancroft paid out but he’d chosen to return it anyway. So she wouldn’t have a choice. Or maybe… so he wouldn’t have one either.

"Damn it," she leaned back in her seat and felt the crumpled packet of cigarettes trapped in her jacket.

She'd been carrying it around all week.

He'd promised her he'd quit. But that was Kovacs. And the Ryker she knew couldn't go five minutes without a roll in his mouth.

She pulled out the packet and stared at the half dozen rolls of Langton Lights.

People passed by. Slowly trailing out of the Arrivals Hall and Kristin frowned, remembering the ribbons of smoke that trailed out of his mouth whenever he grinned at her. The way his eyes would scan her top to bottom when she was insulting him. And how she hoped in those moments that Envoys could not read minds.

She was pretty sure they couldn't.

...

Pretty sure.

But the way he looked at her was unmistakable. Like her entire life story was carved into the depths of her eyes, and he was reading it one line at a time, savouring it, spell-bound.

 _Stupid,_ Kristin thought to herself glumly. _So fucking stupid._

She felt a pang in her heart as she remembered. Tried to cut all those feelings out, bottle them up, ignore them. But she had never been good at letting things go.

Her hand absently pulled a cigarette out of the packet and slipped it into her mouth. The ignition patch was halfway up to meet it when she physically stopped her hand and glared, hating herself. The only thing harder than quitting was getting Ryker to quit. She couldn't afford to start smoking again so she stuffed the packet back in her pocket and sighed, leaning back onto her arms.

Most of the not-so-happy reunions were winding down as the initial shock faded. Now it was just a matter of going through the motions, re-establishing norms until everything felt okay again.

People steadily trickled out of the Arrivals Hall and by the end, only a single man remained, forlorn and waiting on the bench with a cheap synthetic flower bouquet in hand.

Ortega watched him pitifully as a tear rolled down his cheek but she didn't say anything. Neither did the attendants as they disappeared behind closed doors. He'd probably been there a while.

It became eerily quiet once more and Kristin threw her head back to stare at the high ceiling. The tall pillars reminded her of the small church in The Castro, near her parents’ place. The building wasn't much to look at on the outside, but indoors, they'd splayed holo-tiles over every surface and the projections made even the drab evercrete columns look like they were carved from gold. A giant altar had been erected at the far end and a massive cross towered above it, almost as high as the ceiling.

Ortega remembered staring up at it like she did now. When her parents and everyone else in the church would pray, heads bent, hands clasped. But little Kristin stared up at the elaborate carvings on the ceiling from the pews and waited for the glitch that happened every week. Some time during Mass, the holo-tiles would skip and twitch and reveal the stark, grey evercrete underneath for a few seconds. And little Kristin would feel like she was the only one who could see the world. The real world. Because when she told her family to look up, it would all be gone, and they would only shush her aside.

What she wouldn't give to hear Alazne scolding her now. What she wouldn't give to hear another lecture or a prayer, whispered curtly by her side. But it was never to be.

Never again.

Alazne Ortega wouldn't be caught dead in a place like Alacatraz. And not just because she was already dead.

Kristin smiled grimly at the pun for it was all she could do. Any deeper thought became too painful to confront.

The death of her family had changed her. The sight of them bleeding out on the floor played vividly in her mind, again and again. Reliving it in virtual had made it so she could never forget. Made her angry enough to rip the stack out of the son-of-a-bitch that did it. And her state of mind now?

She couldn't say. She wasn't a full-blooded killer like Kovacs. Murder and mayhem seemed to be routine for him. Like sonic-brushing your teeth in the morning.

She shivered, remembering that nonchalant Envoy cool as he slapped the head of Dimi the Twin, on ice in a champagne bucket after a busy day at the Wei Clinic, murdering up a storm.

Kristin hated Dimi as much as humanly possible. But she could never be as casual about human bodies as Kovacs. Sleeves, he called them exclusively. And was as reckless with organic damage as only someone that swaps them regularly can be. Kristin wasn't even sure if he felt pain anymore.

She shook her head.

Her mind had slipped away again and she found herself reaching once more for the cigarettes in her jacket before angrily shoving hands into pockets.

She was here to pick up Ryker. Not Kovacs. Ryker. Elias Ryker. Her partner on the force. Her partner in life, or so she'd thought when they put down a deposit on that place in Polk Gulch. Less so, when she found him beating the shit out of a Protectorate sys op in an abandoned warehouse. Even less when BCPD came to drag him out of their apartment in the middle of the night for the sys op’s murder.

 _"If..."_ He'd looked at her in shock. _"If…?"_ Disbelief carved into his face painfully. And Kristin had put it there.

She hadn't believed he was framed at the time. Or at least, not fully. She wasn't an Envoy, for fuck's sake.

She got to her feet and paced a few metres. More people had begun filing into the Arrivals Hall for the next batch.

Number 23.

Assuming fifteen re sleeves had pulled that down, he was Number 8 now. It would be this batch. And she couldn't stop herself from wondering if Kovacs would be in it too.

Unlikely. Extremely unlikely.

If she knew the Envoy at all, he'd hawked the best looking combat sleeve Bancroft money could buy and needlecast back to Harlan's World where he belonged. But Kristin couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't.

The way he'd walked out on her last week, on his way to return the sleeve. That hesitation as he walked up the stairs and made for the door. The way he looked at her. Those eyes. Reading her own, like her soul had been scribed into her irises. It seemed to make his mind up for him.

She'd cried after that. Sat there in the dark for a few hours and cried. And prayed. For her family. God rest their souls. For Abboud, who was family and friend and colleague and father. And for Mickey. Who'd died simply because she was stupid enough to ask for his help.

She gave thanks as well.

For the chance to get back at the fucker that killed them all. For the RD of Reileen Kawahara and for Dimi the Twin's stack, crushed up between the titanium bones of her new hand.

She thanked God for the Bancrofts getting slammed with Real Death charges like they deserved. For Ryker’s name cleared. And for Kovacs - the motherfucking Envoy that pulled a miracle out of his ass every day he walked the Earth.

Laurens Bancroft really did get what he paid for.

It brought a certain satisfied curl to Kristin's lips as she thought about it.

"This seat taken?" someone asked her distantly and she had to shake herself back into reality like a data-rat after a week in virtual.

"Hmm?" She turned to see a mixed family asking and shrugged. "Help yourselves."

Ortega wasn't much for sitting around. She walked the length of the Arrivals Hall, glancing at the time display in the corner of her eye. A few more minutes now and he’d walk through those doors, wearing his own sleeve.

She felt her heart pulsing strongly in her chest, beating rhythm to the blood in her veins and took a deep breath.

She was nervous now. More nervous than she’d been when a stranger was supposed to come walking through those doors. And she didn’t know why.

 _“There’s never just one,”_ Caroline’s voice bubbled up from somewhere. _"Just the one you choose.”_

Ortega leaned into one of the tall evercrete pillars and rested her head against the cool surface. Ever since Kovacs walked out of her life she’d felt strangely vulnerable without him by her side. The pillar was a poor substitute for the Envoy with no fear. No fear, Kristin remembered, but for the loss of his friends held at gunpoint by Reileen Kawahara’s goons.

 _“Choose which one of them gets their stack blown out,”_ the furious Meth hissed at him. _“Or I’ll have them all killed right now.”_

And he chose to point the gun at himself.

Kristin closed her eyes, remembering the way he looked at her. The pain. No sign of it in any part of his body but those eyes and the tear that rolled down his face when he pulled the trigger. No fear. Only regret.

And then annoyance when he realised the gun was filled with blanks.

Reileen fucking Kawahara.

 _“You’d risk your life for them?!”_ Ortega remembered her screaming. _“You think you love her, don’t you?”_ The gun was suddenly shoved in Kristin’s face but the sound of opening doors broke her free of that nightmare.

She opened her eyes to find a new batch of the resleeved drifting into the Arrivals Hall. They were as stiff and awkward as the last bunch except for one really tall man in blue decanting scrubs who had no trouble seeing over the tops of bowed heads.

His eyes lit up when he saw her, and a wide smile split his face as he said,

“Kristin?”

The name echoed through the chamber and hit her hard. It wasn’t the growl she’d grown accustomed to. There was no sneer or self satisfied smirk to goad her into agreeing. Instead, a sort of innocence had taken root. It spread through his face as she nodded, holding back tears, not trusting herself to speak.

He sped up, weaving his way through the wave of confused sleeves with a “Sorry” or “‘Scuse me” to make his way to her.

Kristin took a tentative step forward. And then another, her hands hesitantly rising.

He cleared the crowd and dashed the last few metres, powerful arms spreading wide to engulf her.

She reached for him, wrapping her own arms around his neck as he hugged her waist and lifted her off the ground with a little aid from the Neurachem.

She pressed her face into the side of his neck, still slick and smelling faintly of nutrient goo but alive.

He rocked her gently, side to side. And she clung to him hard, tears spilling from her eyes.

“Kristin…” He slowly let go and she steadily descended back to Earth, her hands still clutching the sides of his face, refusing to release them.

“Elias?” She looked up into his eyes and there he was, beaming down at her. Happy. So, so happy. “Is it really you?”

He tensed at the question and strands of wet blonde hair fell into his face.

“It’s me,” he nodded quickly. “I promise, it’s me.”

“What year were you born?”

“2346.”

“Who was your childhood best friend?”

“Fitch Selsokan.”

“When’s my birthday?”

“May 3rd.”

“Where do we live?”

“What is this? An Ascertainment?” Ryker grimaced.

“Answer the question, Elias.”

“205 Austin Street, Polk Gulch. Under the Discount Butcher sign.”

She pulled his face down and reached for his lips with her own, sucking the nutrient goo into her mouth like a fine spirit and he responded in kind. A hand slid around her waist and another cradled her face as she kissed him deep, remembering, reminding herself of what it had been like.

Her eyes flickered open briefly and spotted a man walking past with a familiar gait and smirk on his face. Ryker pulled her back in when she tried craning her head. It was less than a second but it was enough. It was him, she was sure of it, even in the lean Hispanic sleeve she didn’t recognise.

When Ryker finally let go and she turned, Kovacs was gone. Vanished. Like a ghost.

“What’s wrong?” Ryker said, gently touching her arm.

“Hmm?” She turned back suddenly and her neck creaked. “Ow…”

“Kristin?” Elias caught her face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Fine,” she said weakly.

“Do you need to sit down?”

“I said I’m fucking fine!” she snapped.

Ryker let go. She could see the muscles in his arms pulsing as the Neurachem shot through them.

“I’m… sorry…” he said. There was that innocence again, that guilt, shining in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Kristin…”

His gaze fell and his arms hung limply at his sides.

“I shouldn’t have expected you to wait for me.”

“Elias…” She thread her fingers into his hand. “I did wait for you.”

He looked up hopefully, bottom lip curled.

“You did?”

She nodded gently.

“Even after everything with Mary Lou Henchy…”

“Even then,” Ortega hardened. “I took out a mortgage on your sleeve but Laurens fucking Bancroft came in with his fucking Meth bullshit and-” She was about to blast into a full on tirade when she saw the concern on his face.

“Laurens Bancroft?”

Kristin frowned.

“How much did they tell you during the hearing?”

“Not much.” Ryker shrugged. “Just that they found evidence that exonerated me. That I was going to be resleeved in my own body. All charges dropped. I thought it was a fucking miracle so I didn’t say anything. Why? Is there a catch?”

“No...” Ortega said, shaking her head at the bureaucratic bullshit. “But a fucking apology would be nice.”

“Relax, Kristin,” Elias threaded a hand behind her ear, into her hair, kneading her skin gently as she settled into it. “I’m out.” He smiled. “I’m fucking out.”

She smiled too, leaning forward to hug him tight.

“Elias…?”

“Mmm?”

Kristin just sighed. It was him. It was finally him.

“What is it?”

“I missed you so much,” she murmured into his chest.

“...I love you.”

It was three little words. Three short syllables she’d seen Kovacs swallow so many fucking times it wasn’t funny.

They came out of Elias quietly but easily, without a care and without denial.

 _“Pheremones,”_ Kovacs had complained. _“Residual sleeve memory.”_

“I love you so much,” Ryker said again, his deep voice calling her home.

“I love you too,” Kristin whispered, feeling herself lose control of the tears. They ran down her cheeks as she let go and wiped her face.

“Let’s go home,” she said, pulling on his hand.

Ryker nodded.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about.”


	2. Chapter 2

Resleeving is never fun. No matter how many times you do it. 

In the corps, we'd resleeve every week or two, couple of months if it was a long campaign. And the Envoys were constantly hopping between planets, hit and run guerilla tactics, trying to stay one step ahead. In the end, it all amounted to the same thing. I was swapping bodies as often as regular people change clothes. 

Needlecasting your consciousness into another sleeve is near instantaneous and still the fastest way to travel, body notwithstanding. And in war, speed is everything. If a revolution sparks up on a Protectorate colony, there’s no time to ferry a military force in via interplanetary spacecraft. At the current top speed, your crack team of commandos would arrive in time to quiz the survivors’ grandkids on who won the battle. 

Maybe the Elder Civilisation knew how to travel faster than light but they sure as hell didn’t leave any human-friendly manuals behind.

We managed, though.

After probing around the nearest planet for life, the human race found enough buried tech to advance us aeons in the space of centuries. We were digitising our minds and swapping bodies across the galaxy before we knew it.

Didn’t come without a price though. Like I said, resleeving is never fun. Especially if you die in a firefight as a soldier’s likely to do. 

The shock gets you first. You scramble to find the bullet wounds and phantom knives lodged in your flesh, only to realise it’s not yours. Then comes the disorientation. The shakiness. The low-grade amnesia and hallucinations. Dysmorphia's a bitch and the download dues can stay with you for weeks at a time without the right conditioning.

It’s like walking a puppet you’ve never seen before. The strings get all tangled and then someone cuts them out from under you. And while you’re trying to sort through the knots, you realise you were never the puppetmaster to begin with. You were just the puppet. And now you’re writhing on the ground, screaming like a newborn for your mother but she's not there. 

God's not there.

CTAC teaches you to push through it with a spicy cocktail of reacclimation drugs and performance enhancers. Envoys do it through psychospiritual control of the pure mind and meditation techniques. Personally, I like to mix it all up with healthy amounts of alcohol because resleeving is a pain in the ass. 

Even after hundreds of years and bodies, I dread looking into the mirror. But I can’t help it. I need to know. I need to see the face. The stranger staring back from the other side. Much as my brain might fight it.

 _“This is you now,”_ Jaegar says coldly in a CTAC locker room. _“Fucking deal with it. You have work to do.”_

He’s right. Much as I’d hate to admit it.

I’d chosen a Hispanic male for this mission. Late twenties. Lean build on an unassuming frame, hiding neurachem and combat conditioning in plain sight. It was subtle, like a Tibbet knife laced with Reaper or a Wakamo sniper rifle with a Teelex silencer. This guy could slip through a crowd without turning a head but when he needed to, he could light up the room with a smile. There was internal tannoy wired into the cerebrum. Dataport jack for easy access to the Array. And to my Envoy senses it all read like a big neon sign that said Corporate Espionage. And that’s exactly what I needed. 

The download wasn’t too bad this time. I hadn’t died violently in my last sleeve. Well, I _had,_ but they stuck me in virtual after the fact, let me know I was dead, told me my second sleeve was still running around pleasure island with Miriam Bancroft when they picked him up.

We had a nice little game of janken after I told him what went down at Head in the Clouds. It wasn’t anything either of us wanted to discuss. But then again, we couldn’t just ignore it. One of us had to go.

I’m still not sure if I threw the game on purpose or not. But he got to decide.

 _“Find her,”_ he told me. _“Find Quell.”_

I nodded.

And that was the end of him.

I climbed out of the tank later that day to testify. And a week after that, I returned Ryker's sleeve. They put me in the queue and I woke up a few days later in Alcatraz, decanted by some newbies that freaked when I pulled the nutrient tube out of my mouth and sat up grinning like an idiot.

My new sleeve is very smiley. Puts people at ease in contrast to Ryker’s scowl. 

I’d kept a tally of the number of people his charming demeanour had frightened into stumbling or flinching or falling over while I wore it. 23. In the space of two weeks. I thought it was impressive but in retrospect, I didn't have much cause to smile. And Ryker’s sleeve was about as subtle as a Sunjet bolt set to disperse on a wide beam.

I have a good feeling about the new sleeve though. Or maybe it’s the sleeve that has a good feeling about this whole situation. It seemed rather cheerful, smiling back at me in the reflective surface of a sterile tray I'd frightened the Doc into giving me. Apparently this guy was in for tax evasion or something else exceedingly harmless that didn't warrant the sentence he was serving.

I stoked up the Neurachem in his system to make sure I hadn't pulled a dud but the electric feeling of muscle expansion and tightening proved that I wasn't wrong. This guy was wired to the eyeballs and I would need a few days to figure out the enhancements. The download dues were already setting in so it was time for some characteristic Envoy cool. That nothingness that made me numb from tip to toe. 

Pain you can either use or shut down, and I had no use for it currently, so I switched off. That didn't stop my sleeve from working though. Or forming a massive boner as I stepped into the showers. But that's the price of tanking a human body for any period of time, the hormones tend to build up with nowhere to go. 

I squeezed my fist and breathed deeply, concentrating on walking and it funnelled the blood in my groin back to the rest of my body.

Breathe. Move. Control. It's what Envoys do. But it was still weird, seeing Ryker in the showers. Ghosting, the boys in CTAC called it when you'd see a sleeve you'd worn before. An out of body experience.

I found myself staring at the scars I’d given him, hoping he wouldn’t notice, but he started pawing at himself straight away, the shock evident in his face. And then he quickly looked down to see if his cock was still between his legs where I’d left it.

He sighed in dramatic relief and stuck his head under the lukewarm torrent of disinfectant, brooding, statuesque. It reminded me of an experia flic I'd seen back on Harlan's World - The Fall Guy. Micky Nozawa in the lead role - a criminal with a heart of gold that got locked up in an old timey prison for a crime he didn't commit. Not his best work but there was a long shower scene where he beat the shit out of six yakuza lieutenants with his bare hands that made up for it.

Luckily for Ryker, it was just me and a bunch of resleeved civvies in the showers that day. Or so I thought, until a tall Caucasian male pushed past me with a shiv clutched tightly in one hand.

I had to give it to him. A hit like this would take a lot of planning and effort to orchestrate from inside a criminal storage facility but I was half-expecting it when I requested the same time slot as Ryker. There were still plenty of people that wanted him dead. So I sped up and clipped the assassin's ankle as I made my way to a free distributor. It gets so slippery in communal showers, what with all the water. Someone might trip and fall. And if they happened to land on their own knife? Well...

One woman couldn't help but scream when she saw the man die, alerting every guard in the vicinity. Too bad the vic pierced his own heart like that. Bled out in seconds.

I kept a wide berth from the whole affair as they dragged the body away, blood swirling beneath our feet.

I calmly rinsed my new sleeve out while Ryker towelled off. He seemed a little out of it. Didn't even notice the commotion behind him as he walked away. I quickly followed, catching a glimpse before one of the attendants popped up in front of me with a sensuous smile, offering a towel and a clean set of decanting scrubs. The sleeve was already smiling back so I winked, much to her delight.

Her pale pink lips collected into a pout and her green eyes cautiously sped side to side to see if anyone was watching as I put on the scrubs. She grabbed my hand before I could thread my foot into the second slipper and pulled me away from the crowd that was heading into Orientation. She was clearly aware of the hormonal overabundance suffered by the newly resleeved and she was pretty too, wide hips rocking under the uniform as she walked.

We were halfway down an adjacent corridor when security stopped us. A guard placed a fat fingered hand on my shoulder and she ran.

“Oh, come on…”

The vice grip intensified and I turned to find a whole squad of jacked up security guards staring down at me. The height of my new sleeve wasn’t as formidable as Ryker’s so I shrugged and followed them. 

The Warden had a stirring monologue prepared for me in his office. He talked at length about how his institution had successfully rehabilitated a recidivist terrorist/mercenary into a Protectorate hero like I wasn't the person he was talking about. 

I tuned out halfway through. Comatose by the end.

“Hmm? What?” I came to suddenly.

“You’re a lucky man, Kovacs,” Sullivan told me, butchering my name as Earthlings tended to do. 

Lucky, huh?

250 years out of my time. 80 light years away from home. Sole survivor of a failed uprising that still echoed in the pages of history like a cautionary tale. Fucking Protectorate bullshit, is what it was. Not luck. 

I didn't say anything though. Just signed on the dotted line, like always. It's the bits of paper that matter on this world. Not the people, or their lives. It was the fucking bureaucracy. Only the oligarchs that abused it had any kind of power.

They'd corrupted my sister. Destroyed Quellcrist Falconer and the Uprising. And left me stranded here, alone. But that was about to change.

The Warden let me go with a self satisfied grin and a wave of his hand. I thanked him and left his office like a good little Protectorate lap dog but he still sent two steroid pumped security guards to accompany me.

Discharge was almost empty when I walked in to collect my clothes and incidentals. 

Flexible SynTex trousers and tunic. Long, black coat. Boots. Belt. ONI band and applicator. As close to military without actually being it. My fashion sense hadn’t matured much since CTAC. And Quell’s resistance fighters weren’t exactly known for shopping at the Millsport Takashimaya. But Poe seemed to get it because I had a full wardrobe of clothing waiting for me back at the Raven. 

I shrugged on the coat and caught my reflection in the mirror as I was leaving. Dark eyes stared back at me as if they knew some secret I didn’t. The face was chiselled with shadow on smooth brown skin, paled a few shades by the tank. His hair was dark and wavy and long enough to gel back and stand, but if this guy expected me to do that every morning, he was going to be disappointed. 

I brushed the thick mop back, hoping it'd stay put long enough for me to find an autobarber. 

He had wide cheekbones, this guy. A neat sloping nose. Less prominent jaw than Ryker, outlined with stubble and a little moustache on the lip like a virtual pornstar. 

He didn’t look bad, considering.

 _I_   didn’t look bad. Come on, Tak, this isn’t amateur hour.

I shook it out and followed the others into the Arrivals Hall.

“Kristin?” I heard my own voice.

No. It was Ryker’s voice. _Ryker’s_   voice, I repeated for clarity.

He rushed ahead, no doubt having spotted her.

I made my way through the bumbling mass of resleeved civvies and finally saw them. 

Ryker had Ortega lifted off the ground and pressed so close she may have suffocated if she wasn’t half-strangling him herself. And with that arm too...

He cut her loose and she pulled his head down, doubtless plunging her full brown lips into his own as I approached. Memories flooded back with total recall but I locked it down. No physical reaction whatsoever.

I think seeing them together like that finally drove it home. It wasn’t me she'd been looking up at, looking for, all those times. It was Ryker. And now she had him back, sleeve and all. 

It was the least I could do after all the shit Bancroft put her through. 

Tanaka. Dimi. Leung. Reileen. Everyone had taken turns beating Ortega down. And I didn't exactly help. So this happy ending was on me.

Happy… right...

At least my dick wasn’t threatening to helicopter its way out of my pants at the sight of her. The tight pull of stomach muscles I had felt whenever she was around didn’t seem to affect me in my new sleeve. I could breathe easy. No rise in heart rate. Envoy cool and CTAC confidence. Just another resleeve for Takeshi Kovacs.

I guess it really _had_   been the pheromones. Ryker was big enough to secrete a whole lot of them and testosterone’s a bitch in big quantities unless you knew how to use it. In combat, big T could make you so angry and hateful, you were pretty much unkillable until you were already dead but in a society where violence is a no-no, you’re gonna have problems. And he’d seen his fair share.

I stuck my hands in my pockets as I walked past and Kristin’s eyes fluttered open inconveniently to spot me.

First name, Tak? Bit familiar, don’t you think?

I turned away and kept walking as fast the runner’s legs on the new sleeve could carry me. I was out the door before I heard Ryker talking again. And then the wind and rain hit me in the face like a sobering shower. The automatic doors slammed shut.

I sighed and held up a thumb, hailing an autocab as I walked down the steps and through the crowd of protesters once again. No Ortega shoving idiots aside this time.

“Abomination!” one of them spat at me.

I rolled my eyes. Still smiling, I noticed the smirk on my face.

Could it be, that I was feeling, happy?

Don’t be stupid, Tak. You don’t know the meaning of the word.

An autocab finally answered my call, drifting down from the endless aerial traffic overhead and came to a stop just past the religious nutjobs waving their signs around. 

“Where is your outrage for the souls of the damned?!” an elderly man screamed in my face.

“Same place it always is.” I shrugged, accepting the stupid pamphlets.

Last time the mob had been angry Article 653 got stopped. This time, there was an edgy detest for its success and swarms of Neo-Catholics poured in to protest against this desecration of their faith, nevermind that the technology was being used to identify criminals or save lives.

“The dead should stay dead! Down with Article 653!”

“You guys are so hard to please…” I squeezed through the last of them and dove into the autocab.

“Please input a destination.”

“The Raven on Coronado Street.”

“Recent reports have indicated that the Raven Hotel is no longer in service. Are you sure you wish to-”

“Yes.”

“Destination accepted. That will be 26 credits.”

I swiped my thumb over the payment screen and the autocab took off. Up into the sky, it quickly melded into traffic with an inhuman speed and accuracy as I looked out the window. Saw the bay and the murky grey water and rain and wind blowing waves this way and that. 

Alcatraz looked like some kind of monolithic eyrie constructed by the Elder Civilisation back when humans were still a primordial ooze. But the structure was man-made. Just desolate and well placed, tall and dark enough to make you think it was alien. Fear is an effective tool of control.

I turned away and looked out at the massive bridge stacked high with shipping containers as we passed over. There were people actually living in those things, Ortega had told me. Mostly homeless and cranked up junkies the police shook up every once in a while when a criminal was stupid enough to hide amongst them. 

She’d be at it again pretty soon, I was sure. There wasn’t much that could keep Ortega down. She felt the call too strongly - the rage at injustice, as Quell called it. She would have made a good Envoy. Unlike me.

I shook my head.

It’s over, Tak. She’s got her boyfriend back. And a hefty pay raise after Tanaka came down with a bad case of guilt and sympathy. It wouldn’t be long before he retired for good. And then the Fell St PD would be looking for a new captain. One that wasn’t weighed down by an IA investigation or ties to Reileen Kawahara. 

In fact, Chief Justice Urtekin would want the department to put its best foot forward and what better way to show it than promoting the cop that brought down a Meth. Ortega just had to keep breathing and it would all fall into her lap sooner or later. All she’d had to sacrifice for it was her family and her arm. And it was all my fault.

Leave it alone, Kovacs. You don’t do guilt. 

Really? Then why is it that every time I close my eyes now, I feel Rei’s lifeless body in my arms, still warm, still bleeding, stack gone. 

_The Patchwork Man will crack your bones_  
_And chop off your limbs and rip off your skin_  
_And sew the pieces onto him_

_"You force-grew a clone?”_

_“Where’d you get the cell mass from?”_

_“You know how expensive and illegal these thing are?”_

Stop it. Lock it down. Deep breaths. Stay cool. It had to be done. 

I tapped the ONI on my wrist and checked the time, the weather, skimmed through headlines and front pages. Every news outlet was still spinning something about Head in the Clouds, Article 653, Reileen Kawahara, the Bancrofts, Kristin Ortega, Bay City PD, Fightdrome... 

No mention of Takeshi Kovacs or Envoys or Uprisings or Quellcrist Falconer, just like the UN wanted. I kept quiet, they kept quiet and I got my pick of the sleeves from Protectorate storage, good ones included.

_The Patchwork Man…_

Stop it.

_Will crack your bones._

I’m serious.

 _“I remember you being smarter,”_ I heard Rei’s voice, younger than I remember.

“Is there any porn on this thing?” I tapped at the autocab screen in front of me.

“This is a public transport vehicle. If you require specialised entertainment, please look through our catalogue of partner services.”

The bright square in front of me lit up with images of luxurious limos and high class whores from the Houses. Evidently my DNA trace had showed just how much credit I was carrying, but I wasn’t in a rush to spend it all. Though being freshly resleeved does make it very tempting.

It wasn’t long before the autocab touched down near the Raven and released a gull-wing door for me to alight.

“Thank you for travelling with Bay City Autocabs,” it vocabulated politely as I climbed out and splashed through the puddles and rain, toward the dim exterior of the Raven Hotel.

Police had been in there already. Found the body of Michael Torkey, a BCPD tech with his stack blown out. The hotel’s matrix core has been nuked by an electron destabiliser and now the red glass panels that once pulsed with sensuous luminescence were dark behind twin ravens which sat still over the entrance and would speak, nevermore.

I pushed through the revolving door and slowly stepped inside, cranking my vision up with Neurachem. The sleeve automatically activated a user interface for low-light environments, tracing the edges of shin-hungry tables and furniture with transparent blue lines. A pleasant surprise that was certainly not on the list of registered enhancements I reviewed when considering the sleeve.

I looked around at the sorry state of the lobby. The police had been in there for a total of two days, maybe less. Open and shut case. And nobody cared enough about AI to identify the killer. Ava Elliot told me what happened later. Told me it was Leung. And Leung was dead, so there really wasn’t much left to do. No justice to mete out. No revenge to be taken. 

There isn’t much use for an Envoy in times of peace. No use for a soldier once the enemy is defeated. It’s why CTAC cast us offworld as soon as the battle was won. In some cases, we stayed to clean up the stragglers, anyone that could reignite the spark of rebellion once we left but we were always some place we could fight, covertly or otherwise, because we didn’t know what to do with peace. That’s not what they taught us.

Quell’s Envoys weren’t much better. Revolutionaries knew how to destroy, maybe, stick to it the system, break it down. But building? Or rebuilding? Living? That’s a whole different war we weren’t equipped to fight.

I wandered over to the bar but all the good stuff was already gone. Missing crystal carafes and broken tumblers assaulted my Envoy senses and the faint handprint on the bar prodded my psyche unpleasantly. I studied the dust on the counter, like ash but the colour of rainbow quartz when the frail light hit it. I ran a finger over the bar, already suppressing a flinch, expecting him to materialise over my shoulder as he had done so many times. But he didn’t.

Poe was gone. 

I sat down at the bar and looked over the lobby, the once immaculately macabre interior that seemed to have a life of its own.

_“I’ve been researching the famous gumshoe private dicks of the past, and I believe I can assist you in the time-honoured position of the shamus’ dependable and steadfast partner. Hmm?”_

Yeah, he fucking assisted alright. And they came for him. Like they come for everybody I know.

_“The partner’s frequently murdered. Alas, me being an AI makes that, uh, less likely.”_

Less likely but not impossible. Even AIs aren’t safe from real death when they’re friends with an Envoy. Or an ex-envoy. Or a Praetorian. Or maybe just me, Takeshi Kovacs, purveyor of murder and punishment and real death and lies.

I shook Poe’s word patterns and mannerisms out of my head, reigning in the total absorb that was keening personality fragments from the hotel decor.

I got up and strode across the red tiles, taking inventory of the fresh serpentine graffiti and skid marks that had manifested themselves in my absence. Toppled furniture, torn curtains and the distinct odour of piss were the most obvious signs.

Someone had been here. Many someones. I counted sixty eight different sets of footprints with the sleeve’s enhanced optics and user interface. Mine, the Elliots, Mickey’s, Leung’s, his goons, then cop shoes and then began the many and varied visitor footprints I didn’t recognise.

I stopped by the blood stain and stared at it for a moment. This would be the perfect time for someone to ambush me from behind if they were stupid enough.

“Freeze, motherfucker.” 

Right on cue.

I heard footsteps and mapped his location as he lifted the weapon. The sleeve was moving before the last word left his mouth. I slapped the gun aside, chop to the throat, knee to the stomach. Grab the gun as he reels. Disarm. Adjust my grip and step back, weapon ready. 

I heard more idiots rushing down the stairs, about to burst through the open fire escape and grabbed my would-be attacker. A scrawny kid with augmented eyes and cheap Neurachem but not much sense.

“One more step and I blow his stack,” I called out to the dumbfucks piling into the lobby.

They were packing double-barrelled Plexar Vipers, all of them. I didn’t need Envoy Intuition to see the quaint gang motif they had going with the slitted augmented eyes and snake tattoos. Which reminds me…

“Hey, be cool, man. I done nothing to you.”

“See, maybe on Earth, pointing a gun at someone’s head means nothing,” I said casually, tightening my grip around the asshole’s collar. “But where I come from, that ain’t exactly an invitation to dance, sunshine.”

Straight out of Micky Nozawa's mouth, Tak? Are you growing sentimental?

“Dude, calm down,” one of the gangbangers said, taking a step closer. “This is our turf. Now you let Lokie go and maybe we let you leave here with your stack.”

“Your turf?” I said skeptically.

“Yeah!” the big Maori said with more vigour, pumping up his compatriots. “This is Hook End Vipers’ turf.”

“Since when?” 

“Since the stupid ass AI that run it got fragged.”

I felt my fist tighten and the idiot in my grasp began to whimper.

“I have a better proposal for you,” I said, feeling myself smile again. “You fuckers get out of here. You don’t come back. You tell your little friends to stay the fuck out. Deal?”

“Hey, fuck you, ma-”

I shot his hand. 

“Fuck!”

I pressed the dual barrels of the Viper into Lokie’s head, sizzling his temple. He crowed in pain as I drove it in deeper.

“You stupid fucks have no idea who you’re dealing with,” I warned them. “Now, I’m gonna ask again, nicely. Cos I like you.”

“Waste ‘im!”

I stoked up the Neurachem and felt it twine through muscle like lightning, pulling taught as I lifted Lokie up and tossed him across the lobby at the nest of Vipers.

They opened fire and hit their screaming comrade by mistake while my sleeve was already sliding across the floor, towards the right edge of their little semi-circle with a foot out, ready to snap the nearest shin.

I heard a scream. Bullets overhead. More screams. Two men shot. Two more on the ground. I went to work, maiming the rest. Broken bones from a block and an arm out of place. A kick to the groin and a shot in the shoulder, dual rounds piercing flesh like fangs. Nothing serious. I just needed to send a message. 

But the Maori that mouthed off at me was bulkier than the rest. His skin was covered in stormy blue serpent tattoos and my Envoy intuition hinted at the ringleader status he might hold amongst these idiots. He managed to knock me back a few metres with a well timed punch and raised his weapon to finish but my sleeve reacted with a quick dodge to the side, landing on its feet with a cat-like grace I had forgotten existed during my time as Ryker.

I grinned as I grabbed a chair by the leg and swung it around. Let go and it promptly went flying at the Maori’s head. He crossed his arms to block. I came up, Viper hissing and fired two quick shots at his neck, barely missing the stack.

He fell with a thud, signalling the end of combat but my sleeve stayed sharp on sight and sound. I could feel tiny air currents drifting in through the revolving door and the fire escape. But there was no sign of reinforcements.

The Vipers were all moaning and groaning on the floor so I dropped the combat stance and came over to inspect the damage. Five broken bones, eight gunshot wounds and a whole lot of bruises. 

I peered over the Maori apprehensively. The sleeve’s UI was showing me his stack, outlined in red. 

Handy. 

It also outlined a knife on his belt. A big vicious looking hook that would scare the shit out of small time criminals on street.

I used it to slice his head off and pick out his stack. They didn't call me the Icepick for nothing.

“Now, about my offer,” I said, holding up the head.

The Vipers looked up in fear and suddenly, I felt the heat of Sharya jungle on my neck. A distant ezan assaulted my ears. I held a very similar but bearded head - Right Hand of God Martyr, cut down before he could set off the enzyme bomb keyed to his body. The enemies looked up at me in confusion. Some had wanted to live but not as much as they wanted me dead. I gave them no reason to try.

“Take your friend here and get out,” I tossed the head at the only man I’d left with both arms in moderately usable condition.

He fumbled and dropped it, scrambled to scoop it up. Another reached for a gun but I kicked it away.

“You leave,” I said, taking a slow step forward. “You don’t come back." I pulled out the Viper. "You tell your friends to stay away.” I leaned down to point the gun at his head. “Or the Patchwork Man’s gonna blow your stack.” I flicked the barrel up, feigning recoil and he flinched.

“You’re crazy, man!” another called out. “You’re a fucking psycho!”

I turned to look at him and I could tell I wasn’t smiling anymore by the reaction I received.

They didn’t say a word as they got to their feet. Only one of them had a snapped shin and needed aid to walk out, Maori notwithstanding.

I stood quite still as they left, weathering the nervous glances, thrown haphazardly over shoulders. And soon, they were gone.

Message received. 

It would keep any more low level scum from violating the Raven in the meantime, I thought, eyes caught on an antique dresser covered in crude phallic drawings and suddenly I had the urge to clean. My hands itched for gloves and disinfectant.

I looked down at the Maori's headless body, blood pooling under his neck and the itch grew stronger. The lobby was a terrible place to leave a corpse and I couldn't rely on Poe anymore. The hotel was dead. I would have to clean this up myself, and the sleeve seemed to agree, already turning to walk toward the fire escape.

I went down several sets of stairs in complete darkness before I realised there was no light. The tech in the sleeve was outlining the world with blue lines on black as I made my way down into Maintenance Storage. I'd been there a couple of times before, looking for somewhere to hide certain things since Poe couldn’t or wouldn’t keep people out of my room.

There were racks upon racks of cleaning supplies down there which the Vipers had, doubtless, never used. I grabbed a cleaning caddy and realised I was still holding the Maori's freshly cut stack in one hand. I dumped the bony, fleshy mass into the caddy and wiped my hands on some rags. Grabbed some gloves and half a dozen bottles the sleeve seemed to think would be useful. And then I got to work.


	3. Chapter 3

As happy as Ryker had been to see Kristin, it didn’t absolve him of sleeve sickness and on the ride home he’d started shaking. A bead of cold sweat ran down the side of his face when Kristin looked over with concern. 

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah,” he said timidly. “Do you have any smokes?”

“No,” Ortega lied, aggressively man-handling the steering gear to keep the hovercar from crashing into another. 

“It’s just sleeve-sickness.” She shot a worried glance at him. “Puta!” A junker cut her off and she had to swerve to avoid it. 

“You need rest, not cigarettes,” she explained when the danger was past.

“Mmm…” Ryker grunted uncomfortably and turned to look out the window.

Kristin risked a glimpse of his face before returning to scan the unruly traffic. 

“Not much’s changed, has it?” He stared at the holographic neon signs covering the cityscape, progressively getting more lewd as they descended to the bottom of Bay City.

“No,” Kristin said quietly. “I guess not.”

It was quiet between them. Not awkward but quiet, like a dark cloud had rolled in over the horizon and blocked out the sun. She wasn’t sure if it was Ryker’s sleeve-sickness or her own tired state of mind that kept them from speaking but they remained silent till the end of the ride.

Ortega landed in her designated parking space a block away from home and activated the police holotape on the dashboard to make vandals think twice. 

“You okay?” she said, turning to find Elias staring into space.

“Hmm?” He shook himself out of it. “Yeah.”

_”Coming back from the dead is a bitch.”_

Kristin frowned.

“I can’t imagine what it feels like.” She put a hand on his. 

“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Ryker tried to smile but it did little more than neutralise his frown.

“It’s gonna be okay.” She squeezed his hand, rubbing a thumb over the knuckles. “In fact, it’s gonna be better.” She grinned.

“Yeah?” Ryker turned his head to look at her properly. “Please tell me your mother hasn’t thrown us a surprise party.”

Kristin’s good-natured grin turned sour and she swallowed painfully.

“No… She’s… not there.” She released his hand.

“Good,” Ryker said. “I don’t think I could handle it right now. Or the lecture...”

“She only wanted what was best for me.”

“And that's obviously not me. I get it.” He rolled his eyes. “Let’s just go...” He cracked the door open and groaned, trying to leverage his body out.

Kristin watched him thoughtfully before slowly turning to face her own door, hesitating before keying it open. Her body went through the motions on auto-pilot and soon, she found herself standing beside the vehicle with her duffel bag like always. 

“Here.” She pulled out a coat for him. “It’s cold out.”

Elias struggled to thread an arm in. Kristin helped him with the second but he couldn't stop shaking.

“Jesus Christ…” he muttered, hands balling into fists as he shuddered and clenched.

“It’ll pass,” Kristin assured him. “You just need rest.”

“What are you, an expert now?” he hissed.

“I’m the best you’ve got,” she said stiffly, pulling at his elbow. “Now, come on. One step at a time.”

“Nnngh…”

They made it down to the sidewalk and trekked through the alleys, avoiding busy food stalls and pedestrians before finally arriving at the derelict discount butcher’s on Austin. There was an unassuming door set into the wall at the far end of the building where they stopped.

“Okay, hold on.” Kristin unravelled the arm around her shoulders and leaned Ryker against the wall. 

“Urrgh…”

She fished out her keycard, stuck it in the lock, tapped in a pin code, scanned her fingerprint, optics and DNA, before it finally clicked. 

“Here we go.” She kicked the door open wide and wrapped Elias’ arm around her neck again. He leaned on her heavily but she managed to prop him up and walk him inside. “That’s it…”

The door closed behind them and Kristin dropped her duffel bag to conserve her strength. She cranked up the Neurachem in her arm to guide Ryker down the staircase. The heavy burden made it twice as long as she remembered and a couple of times, he almost fell off the unrailed side.

“Vamos, mi amor,” she pleaded, readjusting her grip.

Her words seemed to imbue him with enough strength to descend the last few steps before promptly collapsing onto a nearby sofa.

Kristin exhaled deeply, an arm clutching at her aching back. 

“Jodidamente pesado…” she muttered, straightening up. 

She blew a lock of hair out of her face as she circled the sofa and knelt down beside Ryker to examine his head, brushing the hair from his face. Eyes closed and mouth open, he was snoring softly, sound asleep.

“Dulces sueños, mi amor,” she whispered and left a kiss on his forehead.

It would be a few days before he could move properly, Kovacs had warned. The nicotine, drugs, anxiety, depression and repeated physical trauma had taken their toll on Ryker’s body over the years, making his sleeve a none-too-pleasant place to wake up in the morning. With the addition of virtual torture, blood infection, Reaper infusions and God knows what else, he would be having the worst Kovacs hangover imaginable, despite resleeving into his own body.

Ortega frowned as she looked down at Ryker, tracing the scar over his left eye with a gentle finger. She had given him this one herself but his flesh was covered in long crooked lines, cut apart and then cauterised when they couldn’t afford surgery. Despite his physique, Ryker was a mess. An ex-UN army officer with no real skills other than picking fights and tracking down scumbags which naturally lent itself to police work. But how he would handle recuperating and keeping a low profile remained to be seen, especially after the whole debacle at Fightdrome. There would be plenty of scum that came looking for revenge. 

But Ortega would be ready.

Kovacs had turned her entire apartment into an armed bunker. The best money could buy. There was now enough security in the building's basement to withstand siege from an army of Praetorians. But a few more firearms wouldn’t hurt. 

She got to her feet and recovered the duffle bag at the top of the stairs. It was heavy with purchases from a certain Envoy’s shopping list. 

_“Needlecasting offworld is your safest bet if there’s trouble,”_ he’d said. 

But he knew she never would. 

Like he’d known at the hospital. 

Kristin found herself staring at her own hand as she walked to the bedroom, trying to find some sign that it wasn’t organic but the Jaegar Schuester model 16 lived up to its specs. Reinforced titanium mechanical substructure covered in a Neurachem enhanced cloned human skin. Seamless interface with the patient’s nervous and musculoskeletal systems and it hit like a battering ram when she threw a punch, sending even gene-spliced fighter sleeves flying back when she let loose.

Kovacs could have bought her a new sleeve for the money this thing cost, together with the surgeries, skin grafts, blood transfusions and kidney transplants. But he didn’t.

She sighed, tossing the duffle bag onto the bed and wrangling a Phillips squeeze gun out of its depths.

_“Solid steel load. Electromagnetic accelerator. Completely silent and accurate up to twenty metres. No recoil and it’s small enough for effective concealed carry.”_

_“Is that right?”_ Ortega smirked. 

_”It’ll keep you safe.”_

She fished a sheet of adhesion patches out of the duffel bag and peeled one off. The shimmering chameleochrome felt cool in her fingers as she stuck the patch under her side of the bed. It instantly vanished, blending into its surroundings and swallowed the squeeze gun when she held it close. A magnetic hold, hidden but within reach.

Kristin pushed the duffel bag aside and crawled onto the bed. She reached her hand lazily off the edge and carefully slipped her fingers around the squeeze gun, turning it on the magnetic axis until it was comfortable to grab.

She practised reaching down and taking it a few times, rolling onto the floor, left and right, taking cover. Easy. 

She loaded the rounds, one by one, ten in total. 

_“Reileen’s gone but anyone involved with Head in the Clouds could come after you, or Ryker. You need to be careful.”_

She slapped the gun under the bed and it clicked into place. One down. She looked at the duffle bag. Twenty nine to go.

Kristin sighed and lay down, letting the bed cradle her aching back and neck.

She was tired. So very tired.

Between the hearings, the interviews and back alley shopping sprees with Kovacs, she had not had a single moment to breathe or even to think. And now the turbulent waters of the bay were finally starting to calm down. The burning satellite wreck remained, but soon, it too, would be gone and her life would return to normal. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe this was just the state of her being now. Wound up tighter than an electromagnetic coil on a flechette gun, expecting a corporate fixer or some two-bit criminal to burst in and jump her at any moment. 

How the fuck did Kovacs live like this?

She rolled onto her side, head sinking into the pillow. Her fingers slowly uncurled, revealing the calluses and cuts. Scars of her own, though none as pretty as Ryker’s. He’d be sleeping beside her pretty soon, she realised, staring past her hand. Shirt off, arms akimbo, lightly snoring if he’d had enough to drink. 

So why didn’t it feel better? Why didn’t it feel good?

Ortega tapped her ONI and brought up the security feed in her corneal display. There were thirty six cameras linked into the surveillance suite Kovacs helped her install. She flicked through them, searching for a good vantage point on the living room sofa where Ryker had collapsed.

He was still there. Curled up a little. Long legs hanging off the edge anyway. She was not looking forward to recounting the events that led up to his release. Or his incarceration. 

Ryker could never let anything go. It’s what drove him to smoking and drinking and getting into fights he could never win, but it also made him a great cop. He was on Mary Lou Henchy and the UN crooks that faked her Neo-C coding before anyone else. It’s why they framed him. To put him away, in the dark. And it would’ve worked if it wasn’t for Kovacs.

 _Stop it, Kristin,_ she thought irritably. _He’s gone. He’s not coming back._

But that brief moment in the Arrivals Hall drifted into her mind intrusively. Those eyes and that smirk. It had to be him…. 

Or half a hundred other criminals in Bay City that acted just like him. Arrogant asses assured of their own self-importance. What did it matter anyway? If he was on Earth? 

He had an official pardon from the UN. He was a naturalised citizen. He could do whatever he wanted. And it was none of Kristin’s business.

She flipped over onto her other side.

Nope. None of her business.

…

...

...

Unless he decided to murder a whole bunch of people. 

She sat up suddenly.

He didn’t need a good reason. 

The first night they sleeved him ended with a slaughter at the Raven Hotel which Ortega remembered vividly in her mind. The Wei Clinic crime scene had almost made her puke. And Jack It Off was now a skidmark on the back end of Licktown. 

And how could she forget, Head in the Clouds, on fire and falling, straight out of the sky.

And the culprit was still running around. Free.

The cop in Ortega had been silent since she lost Abboud, anger taking the place of common sense and decency but now… she shivered as she thought about what she’d enabled and let unfold. Even Ryker. It had all gone seventy steps too far.

“Damn it.”

She tapped her ONI and brought up her contacts, flicking through the digital rolodex until she reached the card she was looking for.

She took a deep breath, hand drifting over the ONI controls. 

Maybe she was just being paranoid? 

Surely, he wouldn’t risk freedom on his very first day. There was no one in the galaxy that stupid or arrogant…

…

…

… except Kovacs.

Kristin sighed and tapped the ONI.

The call dialled, but no one picked up. It trilled a few times before playing the pre-recorded greeting.

 _“This is Samir el-Abboud, Fell St PD, Organic Damage Division. Please leave a message.”_

Kristin covered her mouth when she heard it, unable to speak. It still hurt, more than words could say but she pushed through.

“A-Abboud,” she said quietly. “Listen, I… I need to know you’re not… doing anything… bad.”

_What the fuck was that, Kristin?_

“Just… call me, if you’re around, okay?” She said. “Everything’s fine. I’m fine, but… I’m worried.”

She swallowed.

“Don’t do anything stupid or I will fucking arrest you, you got that?” she said harshly. “I mean it.”

“And thanks…” She caught sight of Ryker on the sofa over the security feed. “Thanks.”

She ended the call and fell back onto the bed with an exasperated sigh.

That line was supposed to be for emergencies only. But if it would discourage him from killing anyone or wanton organic damage, it would be worth it. 

Somehow, Kristin found the energy to crawl off the bed and get to her feet. She spent an hour or two attaching weapons to different alcoves and undersides of furniture, even lifting Ryker’s legs to hide a shotgun under the seat cushions.

“Mmmm…” he muttered dreamily but didn’t stir and Ortega shook her head.

That was all the duffel bag had to offer. And all that worrying had made her hungry. Come to think of it, Ryker would be hungry too, when he finally woke up.

She dumped the empty bag and wandered into the kitchen, opening the cold storage unit to peruse her supplies. There were some eggs and some cheese. A few kilos of mince from the butcher. Nice ripe tomatoes and capsicums from the market. 

Ortega had taken an interest in cooking recently, writing down what she remembered of her mother’s recipes when she could. The smell of sizzling onions and the sound of chopped vegetables had always been the essence of home, and she needed that feeling. Now, more than ever.

“Mmm, smells good,” Ryker groaned and pulled his head up.

Kristin turned to find him pushing off the sofa to stand with a little more stability than before. 

“Almost done.” She smiled. “Have a seat.” She pointed a knife at one of the bar stools.

Elias drew in a deep breath and she saw him smile again.

He shrugged off the long coat, abandoned it on the sofa and sauntered over to answer her summons. It took him a few minutes to get comfortable on the bar stool but he made it just in time for a plated enchilada to descend before him.

“Since when do you cook?” he asked, looking up in surprise.

Ortega shrugged and threw down the glove she’d used to pull the enchiladas out of the poweroven. She wiggled onto the barstool opposite and settled in to eat.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Like a trainwreck,” he sighed. “You?”

“Me?” Ortega smirked, pouring out some wine.

“You’ve been fighting, Kristin,” he noted with concern. “You’re sore all over.”

She frowned into her wine glass.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened?” He stared her down and she licked her lips guiltily.

“Where do I start?” 

“How about Mary Lou Henchy?” he suggested. “You still think I’m crazy?”

“Elias-”

“I was right, wasn’t I? CTAC changed her coding without her knowing about it.”

“Yes,” Ortega nodded. 

“Why?” Ryker leaned forward.

“Do you remember the Houses?” she said carefully.

“The high-class whore places? Yeah. They’re only on every broadcast channel every hour of every day...”

“One of those,” Ortega began, “was paying for whores to be coded Neo-C so they couldn’t testify against their killers.”

“Their killers?” Ryker’s brow furrowed.

“Mostly Meths,” Ortega said. “They paid to fuck them and kill them. The girls were promised a fresh sleeve and cash to stay silent but they never got it.”

“Shit…” Elias growled.

“Mary Lou ran off when she realised what was happening,” Ortega explained. “She jumped ship from low orbit and ended up dead in the lake.”

“She wanted me to find the body..." Elias said dryly. "She knew I'd spin her back up to hear what happened.” Elias shook his head. “But that fucking coding…”

He ran a hand through his hair anxiously.

"I should have just taken the risk and spun her back up myself."

"Elias, it's not your fault."

"Of course, it's not my fucking fault! It's those fucking Meths…" he hissed, eyes afire. “Which one, Kristin?”

“Elias…”

“Which fucking one?!” he snarled. 

Ortega frowned as they locked eyes and he backed down. Took a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… I need to know.”

Kristin sighed.

“Reileen Kawahara,” she said. “You know her?”

He sat back and shook his head.

“No…”

“Well, she owned a satellite called Head in the Clouds. Ran it as an upscale whorehouse that recruited girls off the street with the promise of a new sleeve and more money they could make in their lifetime. But since sleeve-kills are still illegal, Kawahara paid off CTAC to change their coding so they couldn't be spun up to testify."

“Fuck…” Ryker leaned his elbows on the table and ran his hands over his face. “So what happened? Did someone talk?”

Kristin poorly suppressed a grin.

“It umm… it all kind of fell out of the sky.”

“What?”

“Literally.”

“Kristin, you’re not making any sense.”

“Well, the past month hasn’t really made much sense to me either,” she said, swallowing another mouthful of wine.

“The last month?”

“Mmmm. Actually, even before then.” She gestured with her hand. The wine was helping her talk. “You remember I took out a mortgage on your sleeve, right?”

“You mentioned it back at Alcatraz.”

“Mmm. Took half my salary to keep above board but I kept it covered. Two years, I had it locked down.” She sighed. “But four months ago, Laurens Bancroft shot himself.”

Ryker opened his mouth to pose a question.

“Ah, ah, shh, shh, shh.” She touched his lips with a finger. “You know who Bancroft is.”

He nodded.

“So Laurens Bancroft shoots himself and the police get called in to investigate. Guess who’s desk that case landed on?”

Ryker cocked an eyebrow. “You?”

“Me,” Ortega nodded. “Bancroft believed he was murdered. So I spent two months chasing down every lead there was, even though it all pointed to suicide.”

“It’s always the wife, right?”

“I POLYgraphed the wife at her own insistence,” Kristin burst out. “Not a fucking twitch.”

“So he killed himself?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t get it, Kristin. What the fuck does this have to do with Mary Lou Henchy?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said. “Now, on the third month, I ran out of leads and had to declare the case closed. Ruled it suicide.”

Ryker folded his arms and leaned on the table, listening intently, enchilada gone.

“Bancroft gets pissed off, thinks I’m not doing my job and starts fucking with my life,” Ortega continued.

“He get you reprimanded?”

“For everything under the sun.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Kristin shrugged. “But there’s nothing I can fucking do with his stupid case. So what does he do?”

Ryker frowned.

“...what?”

“He outbids me for your sleeve.”

 **“What?”** his deep voice grows deeper.

“He bought your sleeve,” Kristin admitted. 

“Motherfuck-” Ryker pushed off the table and got to his feet.

“He has more money than God and connections on the UN Council,” Kristin said desperately. "I couldn’t do anything. He snatched it up before I could even blink.”

“He didn’t fucking wear it, did he?”

Kristin shook her head.

“No…”

“Then why?”

Kristin finished off the second glass and poured herself more wine.

“He wanted to fuck with me,” she said sourly, “but he also wanted someone to solve his murder case. So he sleeved an Envoy.”

Ryker shook his head, expression bordering on quizzical. 

“An _Envoy?”_

“Yup.”

“The guys from the Uprising?” Ryker waved his hands. “Quellcrist Falcon-whatever?”

“Yep.”

“I thought they all died at Stronghold.”

“Not this one,” Ortega stiffened. “Bancroft found him in storage on Harlan’s World. Bought him and needlecast him into your body.”

“You can’t be fucking serious?” Elias hissed, hands on his hips.

“I wish I was joking.”

“So… what?” he said. “There was some weird ass Envoy motherfucker running around as me?”

Kristin nodded.

“For three weeks.”

He turned away, shaking his head, pacing the room anxiously. And then he turned back to face her. Their eyes locked and Ortega could see the gears in his head turning, processing.

“He fucked up Kawahara?”

Kristin nodded.

“And Bancroft?”

“He got a pardon out of Bancroft. As well as your sleeve and a buttload of credits,” Ortega said. 

“But then… how am I…?” Ryker’s arms stretched out in question.

“He transferred ownership when they exonerated you,” Ortega said, getting to her feet.

“Why the fuck would he do that?”

“I don’t know.” Ortega shrugged. “There’s a lot of shit I don’t understand about him.” She circled around the island and reached up to touch his face. “But he gave you your body back. Your life.”

Elias looked down at her worriedly. Confused, uncomfortable and a little scared.

“He did this for you, didn't he?" he said. "All of it."

“He had personal issues with Kawahara.” 

“You fucked him, didn't you?”

“Elias…”

“You fucked him while he was wearing me...” He breathed in sharply, a pained smile playing at his lips.

He backed away again, hands on his hips.

“Fuck, Kristin…” he sighed. “I can’t believe you fucking-” He caught his own mouth with a hand.

“Elias, I’m so sorry.”

 _“ARE_ YOU?!” He turned around suddenly. “Having fun out here, huh? Running around with Meths and Envoys? Riding my body like a rentacar while I kick it in cold storage?”

“That’s not what happened?”

“Did you know, Kristin?!” he said harshly, towering over her. “Did you fucking know it was him and not me?”

She looked up at him desperately but his face was painted with shadows and rage.

“It was stupid,” she said.

“YOU FUCKING WHORE!” he shouted angrily and her hand snapped out, purely on reflex.

She slapped him across the face as she'd done before, when the conversation had gone too far, when it led to a place it shouldn't have gone. But her right hand wasn't the same flesh and bone as it had been on those late nights. This time, it broke Ryker's jaw and sent him flying across the room, blood spraying over the floor. He smashed his head against the wall and went limp.

“Oh, shit.” Ortega ran over and collapsed at his side. She’d forgotten again. But this wasn’t an errant door handle or an unfortunate coffee mug. This was Ryker, fresh out of the tank and barely standing.

“Oh, God…” She pulled up his head to rest on her lap. There was blood, so much blood.

“Elias?”

He didn’t respond.

She leaned in but he was barely breathing. She could feel the deformation of his head in her fingers and shivered.

“Elias…”

Emergency services were on speed-dial but Ortega was still surprised at the time it took for them to reach the apartment. She was inside an ambulance, nestled beside Ryker before she knew it and then the questions started. Blood type. Trauma type. How long had he been lying there?

Ortega answered as honestly as she could but there was a clear hand print on the side of Ryker’s face and later, she saw, on the x-ray.

“We recommend immediate surgery to relieve the intracranial pressure building behind the eyes,” the doctor told her.

“Of course,” Ortega nodded. “Anything. I just… I need to call the bank first.”

“He’s covered, ma’am.”

“What?”

“There’s a beryllium level credit account keyed to his DNA. This won’t even make a dent.”

Kristin opened her mouth to say something but the medics were already gone, disappearing behind sterile masks and steel doors. One of the nurses showed her where she could watch the procedure and she sat down, still in shock, speechless.

It took several hours to carefully repair the brain and blood vessels. They patched the skull with custom metal plating and set to work on the face.

“Looks like the jaw’s shattered,” the surgeon remarked, picking it out, one piece at a time. “Have the boys in Prosthetics print off a new one while we’re working here.” He nodded to his assistant. 

“Yes, sir.”

Ortega covered her face in her hands and leaned onto her knees. It was getting unbearable to watch. And all from a single moment of anger. A moment of weakness. 

“¿Por qué no podría ser zurdo?” she sobbed but the tears didn’t help.

Her heart pounded in her chest and her stomach became a black hole of discomfort.

What if she’d killed him? What if she'd destroyed his sleeve? Or even worse, his stack?

What would she do then, she wondered? There would be no forgiving herself after that.

Kristin got up and left the observation room to find a confessional. The police would show up soon but she needed to get it all off her chest. 

There was a small wooden booth a few floors up where a minister sat reticent behind a thin copper grate. She sat down on the wooden stool and closed the door.

“Bless me father for I have sinned,” she began in Spanish and proceeded to pour out a long list of thinly veiled transgressions that had been eating away at her soul. 

It was the first time she’d been to confess since cutting Mary Lou Henchy’s stack out of her body. Everything since then had made the act seem tame by comparison. Every event pulling her deeper down into a darkness she wanted no part of.

“This isn’t me,” she said. “Or maybe it is and I hate it. I don’t want to be this person.”

The minister was silent for a time. He made an attempt to reconcile her actions with the grief suffered from the loss of her family but this confession was clearly out of his professional range. The penance was haphazardly spun together from three others and Ortega felt no better for having recited the Act of Contrition.

“I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Ortega sighed.

“Thank you, father.” She made to open the door.

“May you find peace, child,” the words washed over her gently as she got up. But when she turned to look through the grate, it was closed.

Ortega stared for a uncomfortable moment. There was tell that some confessionals had been digitised and recordings were often kept in order to blackmail those who were foolish enough to confide in them, but Ortega hadn’t lied to anyone. Not to Ryker, or the UN or any of the Meths. Only Kovacs, she realised, as she left the confessional.

_”I’m wearing your fucking boyfriend? And you didn’t think to mention that?”_

_”I have trust issues.”_

Big issues. And not just with trust. There were so many things unfolding around her that she simply didn’t know how to handle on her own. And everyone she had ever turned to for help was gone. Only Ryker remained, and she'd fucked him up too. 

Kristin briefly considered checking herself into a psychosurgery clinic for a few days but then a cold chill ran down her spine as she remembered her last trip into virtual with Leung. The bodies from the Wei Clinic lingered unpleasantly in a dark corner of her mind and any thought of finding professional help was instantly rejected.

The observation room looked down on an empty operating theatre when she got back.

“Where is he?” Ortega asked the nurse outside.

“Hmm?”

“Elias Ryker. He was just in surgery.”

“Oh, they finished up an hour ago. He’s in rehabilitation room A339. Are you his next of kin?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Please follow me to the elevator, ma’am,” the nurse said amiably. She escorted Ortega all the way to the designated room and Kristin began to wonder just how much money Kovacs had left keyed to Ryker’s DNA.

“He’s through here.” The nurse smiled with her oddly symmetrical features and Ortega finally realised what was off about her. 

Synthetic sleeve. But good quality. 

“Thanks,” she said, turning to the door.

The nurse opened it for her and Ortega had no choice but to step inside.

The lights were dim but brightened as she entered the room and saw the bed where Ryker lay, his face heavily bandaged, neck braced.

“Elias…?” She walked over and brushed her fingers over his hand gently, afraid her touch would make them crumble into dust.

He breathed steadily, slowly, like he had on the couch that night. 

Kristin sat down in the chair by his side and frowned.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered to him. “I’m so sorry.”

Tears stained her face as she tried not to cry but it was too much. It was all too much. Everything she touched seemed to be falling apart and she didn't know what to do. How to keep it all together. 

The thought sent her drifting into a troubled sleep and it was hours before she woke up,back aching.

“Hey…” she heard softly.

Kristin opened her eyes.

“Elias...?” 

“Anyone ever tell you, you hit like a truck?” she could hear him grinning under the many bandages.

“I am so sorry.”

“I guess that'll teach me to mouth off at you, huh?” 

Kristin looked down at her hands, suppressing tears.

“Hey…” Ryker reached out. “I’m sorry, alright? You know I got a big mouth.”

Kristin thread her fingers into his and shook her head.

“It’s not you, it’s this fucking arm,” she muttered.

“You got a mean right hook, I’ll give you that.”

“It’s a prosthetic.”

“Wuh?”

“I lost the arm, Elias,” she admitted. "Some fucker jumped me in a elevator and ripped out a piece of my shoulder and..."

“No…”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Couple of weeks ago?”

“Jesus… And you didn’t say anything?”

“I was about to explain when-”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I overreacted. It's just-”

“Damn it, Ryker. It’s not your fault!” she snapped. “It’s mine. It’s fucking mine.”

Elias squeezed her hand gently.

“Why don’t you tell me the rest, huh?” he whispered. “But no hitting this time. Okay?”

Kristin smiled weakly.

“Okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

The first time I resleeved, I was ten years old, the son of a belaweed farmer named Jakub Kovacs who had a tendency to beat his wife after drinking too much and sometimes, without drinking at all.

One day, he beat her so hard she didn't get back up and when he dumped her body in a coolant pool, I knew we were next. I picked up my father's gun and I shot him through the stack before he could lay hands on my sister.

Maybe if I had acted sooner, I could have saved my mother too. Could have left Rei with someone to love her and raise her properly but that's not what happened.

We ran away, Rei and I, two orphans in the swamp, sickly green fireflies buzzing over our heads as we struggled through the belaweed. We tried to hide but a couple of kids in the shallows were easy to spot, especially in Newpest where everyone knew everyone else.

Local law enforcement caught us before we could skip town and a quick look in our house was enough to sentence me to fifty years in storage.

They took my sister.

They took my body.

They spun me up in virtual with a CTAC officer and I almost shit my non-existent pants.

The CTAC's name was Jaeger and he gave me a choice: join the Corps and Rei goes to a good family. Or rot in storage for fifty years, hoping she lives long enough to see me on the other side.

The choice seemed obvious at the time. But I was naive. Stupid. Ten years old. I went to sleep thinking I was protecting Rei, but in reality, I was just looking out for myself.

I woke up in a man’s body with dark black skin I’d never seen before and hair in places I didn’t know I had. The sleeve was pushing forty and I was so sick I threw up all over Vidaura’s boots but she didn’t flinch.

I looked up to find her staring at me with a clipboard, green eyes glittering under a thin sheet of boredom and routine.

 _“Name?”_ she said.

 _“T-Takeshi Kovacs.”_ I wiped the strange sleeve’s mouth.

 _“Another Harlanite, huh?”_ she smirked, ticking off the boxes. _“Date of birth?”_

_”382 EC. Nigatsu Juuni-nichi.”_

She ticked a box, furrowing her brow.

 _”Wait. That can't be right. How old are you?”_ she said but I was staring at my hands rather than paying attention, looking down at the parts I didn’t recognise.

 _”Hey!”_ She tapped the clipboard with her stylus. _”How old are you?”_

_"Uuh… ten?"_

_”WHat?! Who the fuck signed off on this?”_ she snapped, flicking through the document. _”Jaegar?! Did someone put Reaper in his coffee this morning?”_

 _”It’s alright, ma’am,”_ I said. _”It was this or storage.”_

She looked down at me with equal parts frustration and curiousity but then it all disappeared into an eerie calm. She sighed and tucked the clipboard under her arm.

 _“Captain Virginia Vidaura.”_ She offered me a hand.

I took it gingerly and she pulled me up.

Her skin shimmered bronze in the setting sun. Her hair was short and coveralls hid most of her lithe figure, big UN logo on the plain white tee. And while I was admiring the view, she jabbed me with a needle gun.

 _“Come on, kid,”_ she said as I got to my feet. _”Let’s check your functionality.”_

It’s the first thing you do when you cast into a new sleeve. Walk in a straight line. Toss a rock. Catch it. Ten squats. Ten push-ups. Five star jumps. And then maybe you throw up. Or maybe you don’t.

I’d forgone my usual routine after dealing with the Vipers last night. It proved to be an effective test of the sleeve’s combat capabilities and augments. I discovered I could see in the dark, for one. Or at least, the sleeve could. And at one point while scrubbing the floors clean of blood stains, I activated infrared sight which made the entire job a whole lot easier.

Turning it off wasn’t so simple, though. And I spent thirty minutes opening and closing my eyes, trying to find the trigger. Luckily, the Raven provided ample opportunity to exercise my newfound abilities.

The Vipers had scattered fusion lanterns around the place but much of the building remained inaccessibly dark and cold. I soon came to realise the light panels on the ceiling I had mistaken for illuminum tiles were actually made from the same electro-magnetically charged particles as Poe, petrified upon his death, losing their brightness and function but not their shape.

Further investigation showed there was no power anywhere in the building. The plumbing still worked but none of the terminals or electronic appliances were functional. Even broadcasts couldn’t get inside. Which suited me just fine.

 _“Go primitive,”_ Vidaura had said on the way to Ciel Ouvert during the Carcassis campaign.

We followed her lead and tore off the armour, rubbed mud on our faces and made our way into town on foot, avoiding the many drone sentries. The squad slipped in with a group of serfs returning from the day’s harvest and got close enough to behead the so-called Sun King before they could crown him.

Quick. Clean. Covert.

We’d made Virginia proud that night. But I wasn't after a King anymore. I was after Quell. And that presented a whole new set of challenges.

For starters, the UN would be watching my every move. A moralless mercenary they could forgive and forget. But a Quellist or a revolutionary? That would call down every CTAC squad on this side of the galaxy.

I had to be careful. Especially when I went digging through Reileen’s files.

_“I backed her up, before the explosion. She didn’t even know.”_

One final surprise Rei held up her sleeve. I still wasn’t sure if it was real or not. If she was bluffing or blackmailing me.

The UN would have sent Quell’s stack through the EMP as soon as they found it. So how did Rei manage to get a backup, and without anyone noticing?

_“Her DHF is hidden. You’ll never find her without me.”_

Yeah, well... that's not going to stop me from trying.

I need access to Reileen’s holdings. An inventory of everything she’s ever owned, bought or sold. Something only her lawyers would have access to. Maybe some of the top execs at one of the companies she owns. Companies like JakSol SA, which curiously had their eye on this very sleeve when I sniped it out from under them.

A little research showed Reileen had been using JakSol as an interface company. They regularly bought sleeves for their many divisions throughout the Protectorate. Thirty four branches over six different planets. And that was just the one company. I needed to narrow it down. And I wasn’t gonna do that by lying around in the dark.

I opened my eyes and rolled out of bed. It was a modest double with a black leather backboard and white sheets. The suite was carpeted with scratchy synthetic fibre and wallpapered in faux beige leather. A wide window looked out onto a Bay City vista, as always, drowning in neon and rain.

After my brief sojourn to The Raven last night, I decided to check into the Coronado Hotel next door and start leaving a paper trail for whatever UN lackey got assigned to my tail. The Coronado had presented itself enticingly when I discovered it shared an autolaundry service corridor a few levels underground.

 _“Count your exits!”_ Vidaura continued to drill into my head.

The Coronado had exactly five. And one of them was propped open by hotel employees and call girls stealing a smoke between shifts. A perfect way to slip in and out which I felt the need to do before I even reached the bathroom.

The hotel decor was so middle-market that my Envoy Total Absorb was pushing me down with a weary malaise. An apathetic acceptance for my lot in life. A resigned contentment to shuffle into a cubicle and then back out once my hours were finished. Or maybe it was just the tetrameth hangover.

I'd found a novelty beltbag full of it back at the Raven. The Vipers had been using my old room as a drug den and I helped myself to their cutesy snake-stamped apparel with reckless abandon. No sense letting the stuff go to waste.

The bathroom was overbearingly bright and shiny when I stepped inside, tiles glistening like pearls when they had no right to, courtesy of the tet. The whole room was beige and white and shiny and the malaise hit me again. Bearing down like the weight of the world.

I splashed my face with water and reached for a towel, catching sight of my reflection in the mirror. The same stupid moustache and stubble caught my attention. I ran a hand over it and my Envoy Intuition began pulling at the back of my mind.

There were a couple of red spots on my face - skin irritation, similar to the rawness after shaving. But the hairs were completely missing. Three in total. Like someone had plucked them out with tweezers.

I rubbed the face again, examining it more carefully but no more anomalies revealed themselves and the Envoy Intuition retreated for the moment.

I shook it out and stepped into the shower to drench myself in cold water. I needed to be sober for the next couple of days.

JakSol were hiring systems engineers and I had an interview scheduled for the end of the week. Enough time to sober up, go shopping and download an up to date JS scripting database. Maybe even pick up an augment identification kit to see what else this sleeve has up its, well... sleeve.

 _"You're not as dumb as you look."_ Kristin's face drifted up from somewhere.

She was wearing a jacket, a police uniform, a hospital gown. And then she wasn't wearing anything at all. But every time she smiled, something clicked in the cold, dark recesses of my brain and I couldn’t look away.

I made a half-assed attempt to jerk off but the sleeve was giving me the run around. Yesterday, I had a full on boner before I even stepped in the showers, and today, it was limp dick city. Maybe it was the cold water but I didn't stay to find out.

I towelled off and brushed my fingers over the moustache and down my chin, catching sight of my reflection in the mirror again. The Envoy Intuition prickled, not letting me be. Those tiny red blots prodded at my brain like hot needles but it was too early to tell what it meant.

I shrugged on the same clothes from yesterday - the only set I had with adjustable sizing. Small error on my part. But I was gonna need a tailored suit anyway.

I tucked one of the Plexar Vipers into a hidden holster and the other into a beltbag full of tetrameth which I hid behind the backboard of my incredibly boring bed.

Hopefully, it would still be there when I got back.

I left the room at quarter to ten and leisurely walked past the surveillance cameras in the hall. My sleeve was conveniently highlighting them in orange and colouring their range with the same hue.

It was almost too easy.

In the Envoys, we trained to spot every detail, let nothing pass through the sieve of your mind but this tech made it all completely useless. Every point of interest was traced and highlighted for my convenience. I needed only to open my eyes and look.

 _"Expect nothing,"_ Quell had said. _"Only then can you be ready for anything."_ Or was that Vidaura?

I see her silhouette at the end of the hall. She turns, consulting her clipboard before looking up at me.

_"Hey, Tak. Keeping sharp?"_

_"He'd better be."_ Quell folds her arms as I walk past.

And then the ghost of Jimmy de Soto appears, an eyeball torn from his face, ravaged by fire and ash. He collapses straight through me.

 _"Good talk..."_ I hear his mad rambling and shake it out.

I smashed the elevator button, trying to lock it all down with Envoy cool but the voices in my head were growing restless. Stoking a fire I thought long extinguished - the rage at injustice - I didn’t think I was capable of feeling it anymore.

Maybe it was the memory of Quell. Her eyes and her skin and her words. Pressed so close and then gone. Along with my heart and the fire it once held.

If her DHF was still out there. If Reileen backed her up. Maybe the others were backed up too?

 _"You could have had them all back,"_ I heard Rei's voice as I stepped into the elevator and ashen snow began to fall from the ceiling.

I looked up to see the Songspire, humming, chiming. Its ancient blue branches swaying gently overhead.

 _"We could have all been together,"_ Rei said.

And I looked down to see the Envoys smiling, sitting at the table, swapping stories. Reileen beside me. Quell at the far end. Vidaura and Brazil making lovey dovey eyes at each other while de Soto forked a whole flathead and shovelled it into his mouth.

_"You destroyed it."_

I watch as the Rawling takes them and de Soto stabs the knife into Blakely who returns the favour by scooping out his eye. I sit at the table as the chaos ensues around me. Rei shakes her head.

_"You just had to do it, didn't you?"_

I'm pointing a gun at her stack.

_"You just had to kill me."_

I'm wearing Ryker's sleeve as I pull the trigger.

And she's bleeding in my arms again.

I cradle her head. I'm mumbling something about the Patchwork Man.

I'm fucking insane.

_"Breathe, kid."_

Yeah, I know, Vidaura.

Breathe.

I stepped out of the elevator and walked across the lobby, trying to remain inconspicuous. Plain beige tiles and walls conspired to hasten my step but I kept it even.

Fucking hate places like this.

Several middle management looking types were having breakfast in the ground floor restaurant. They didn't look at me but that didn't mean they weren't watching as I stepped up to the front desk.

"Good Morning, Mr Sinclair," the receptionist smiled. "How can I help you today?"

"You know a place where I can get a good tailored suit?" I said. The sleeve was already smiling, which I didn't approve of, but it seemed to be effective.

"Of course," the receptionist said. "For what occasion?"

"Job interview," I replied. "JakSol. You know ‘em?"

"Why, yes. Some of their employees are regular guests at our establishment."

Of course, they are.

"I'd be happy to recommend Seymour's Custom Tailors on Montgomery." He tapped at his terminal and brought up an image of several suits and a logo on the holocoil. "Would you like me to book you an appointment?"

"Yeah."

"Right away." He tapped another button and white circles pulsed through his irises as he activated his ONI.

I casually turned away to look at the lobby. The tiled beige floors and minimalist artwork, trying so hard to be upmarket but falling flat in every respect.

The men breakfasting in the restaurant were busy discussing something equally boring.

"The portfolio for the next quarter looks promising," the fatter one said.

"I haven't had a chance to look at it yet"

"JakSol have been underperforming lately."

"I heard their latest investment went sour..."

"Good news," the receptionist interrupted and I turned to look at him.

"Seymour's two o'clock just cancelled so he can see you personally."

"Great," I said with more enthusiasm than I felt.

“Mr Sinclair is happy to see you at two,” the receptionist said, eyes glowing with ONI rings. “Thank you very much, and have a nice day.”

The rings disappeared and his eyes refocused on me.

“May I offer you some breakfast?” he said, gesturing toward the restaurant. “It’s included with your suite.”

“I’m fine. Can you call me a cab?”

“Of course.” The rings pulsed white briefly. “It’s on its way.”

"Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?" the receptionist said nervously, something in his eyes.

"No," I said, watching disappointment fill them. "Thanks..."

I stepped away from the counter and started walking toward the door.

"The cab hasn't arrived yet," the receptionist called to me.

"I'll wait outside."

It was another dreary day of rain and storms in Bay City and I stopped under the edge of the hotel's covered roof, staring at it, an inch away from the wall of water, droplets flicking into my face.

A few people rushed across the street from cover to cover but most were hailing autocabs and waiting. A small queue had formed in front of the Coronado, just like every other hotel.

I counted a twenty minute wait and the thought sent my hands drifting up to coat pockets, searching for cigarettes. But the sleeve wasn't a nicotine addict. And neither was I. Ryker on the other hand...

I wondered briefly how he was nursing the betathanatine hangover I left him.

Reaper was tough shit. Single hit was enough to hook you. And unless you were rich, CTAC or Envoy, you could not afford the detox, and you had no way to fight craving. The drug was popular with the resleeved and anyone that had a near-death experience.

I'd told Ortega as much but how she planned to handle it, I didn't know. Probably slap a tracker on him like she did with me. No. _Ryker._ I have to stop doing that.

 _"You're not a body, Tak!"_ Vidaura shouts in my ear as I hold the bleeding stub of my leg, tears streaming down my face as it rains and pours. _"It's just a fucking sleeve."_

She shoots me in the heart. Doesn't let me suffer. Probably cuts my stack out or has one of the boys do it.

"Your autocab, sir," I heard the receptionist's voice and turned to see him opening the door.

"There's a queue." I pointed to the line of middle-aged business whatevers.

"I assumed you'd want to jump the line," he says.

I chanced to smile but the goddamned sleeve was already smiling.

"Thanks." I hopped in the cab, scanning the receptionist with internal tannoy.

PALMINO, Jorje. 28 years old. Still wearing his first sleeve. Worked as a receptionist in the Toledo Motel before applying for a role at the Coronado. Good looking. Good bone structure. Fractured his arm in sixth grade. Coded Neo-C.

No ties to the UN or any big corporations but he seemed to know the hierarchy of his guests. Though, I suppose my credit account is fuller than most.

Martin Sinclair was my new name. The one the UN approved. I’d presented my intentions about seeking employment as a systems engineer during negotiations and they agreed it would be the perfect way for me to reassimilate into society.

Takeshi Kovacs was dead, for all intents and purposes. Buried, beneath the rubble of Stronghold where he belonged.

Still, my Envoy Intuition psyched up again. The red spots on my face crossed my mind and my hand instinctively traced the moustache, fingers meeting at the chin.

Why was Jorje looking at me like that?

I've never met him before. But maybe the sleeve had?

I asked Eva Elliot to run a background check on it during vetting and everything was clean. Too clean. Practically squeaky. Except for one seemingly innocuous tax return that landed him 10 years in storage.

Maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe there was a reason JakSol wanted the sleeve, other than hardware.

I made a note to have a private conversation with Jorje about it when I got back.

The cab took me to a less reputable part of town.

I sloshed through the rivers of rainwater that were Bay City streets, looking for an autoteller.

The one good thing about rain is its ability to wash away any lowlifes or dealers that prey on the weak and the stupid. There were very few that chose to brave the storm that day and anyone with a job was already at it. No prey meant no predators and nowhere to hide for anyone that tried to follow me.

But no one saw me withdrawing a sizeable amount of hard cash on the street corner, not even the camera pointed directly at the autoteller, so dense was the downpour. I stowed the stacks of paper money in the dry pocket of my SynTex coat, glad it lived up to expectations.

It was a weird world - Earth. So steeped in tradition and old thinking that they didn’t notice the great big gaping holes in their society. Digital credit could be traced, for example. The owner could be found, even with a prepaid chit. But paper money? These coins that collected into a jangling mass of change whenever you bought something? No trace. Particularly, if you dumped them onto some homeless Earthling begging for scraps.

It was stupid but at the same time, convenient.

I wandered through the rain, exercising the sleeve’s enhanced optics to peer through the impenetrable walls of water and saw the stores were practically empty, if they were open at all.

This part of town came alive at night, but for a price, it could be coaxed into wakefulness at any hour of the day.

I passed by a tattoo parlour covered in neon signs. Kanji and Amanglic in a mess of StripJap slogans that called to me in a way only Harlan’s World fare could do, and I stopped to stare at the artist working.

A forty something year old woman of obviously Asian heritage, though it may not have been her first sleeve. She didn’t have any tattoos. Or she didn’t show them. Unlike the man she was working on, wand buzzing away at the outline of a Koi fish jumping up a waterfall.

I’d had irezumi done on Harlan’s World myself. After Quell and the resistance died, I became a mercenary. A good one. And the Yakuza were only too happy to pay for what I did so well.

_”Irezumi’s tight, Kovacs-san. And Horiyoshi’s the best in Millsport.”_

Satoshi Takayama - an up and coming lieutenant that needed a pep talk, a friend and a shot of tetrameth before he could walk into the parlour. He wanted a dragon. Big stereotypical Yak tat that proved he was a protector. Even tried to cover his hands with it.

I told Horiyoshi’s buddy I didn’t care what I got. I wasn’t long for the sleeve anyway. And he carved a big black snake into my back, shedding its skin.

I don’t know if he knew who I was or what I was, but he didn’t say a word as he did it. Just kept on buzzing with that needle. And I let him. He did a pretty good ouroboros on my forearm too. Did that one to remember Rei.

Got it removed before I returned Ryker’s sleeve to him. It was supposed to close that chapter of my life but-

_“Did you think it would bring you closure, onii-san?”_

“You know, you talk a lot for a dead person.”

_“You can’t kill me, Tak.”_

“I beg to differ,” I said, but with less confidence.

If there was a secret backup of Quell somewhere, then Reileen would probably have seventy secret backups for good measure. I may have destroyed the Psychasec copies and the ones at Head in the Clouds but there could be more. And if I went looking for Quell’s, I was probably going to find them.

_”The snake eating its own tail isn’t a Japanese myth.”_

“Where the hell did mom even get that necklace?”

I turned my head but Rei wasn’t there. Only rain and an empty street.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept walking, searching for signs of the building I was looking for. The grooves and skid marks of a candy cart were hard to spot in the pouring rain but the sleeve had no trouble.

I checked over my shoulder to see that I wasn’t being followed. At least, not by anybody I could detect. And then I dipped into an alley between buildings, darker than the street. Halfway down were two shuttered doors. Bigass lock that looked two hundred years too old to be there.

I scanned the chain with the internal tannoy. No digital in, but that just made my job a whole lot easier.

I stoked up the Neurachem and crushed the lock in my hands. The rusted pieces of iron turned to dust and fell to the floor like ashes as the chain unravelled.

I pulled the doors open a crack and stepped inside, making sure no one was watching.

The interior was dark. The owner was probably still asleep. I thought about looking for a light and the tannoy automatically broadcast a signal for me, finding the switch all on its own.

The warehouse hadn’t changed. Still dank and damp and unkempt.

And there it was. The ice-cream cart.

“Freeze, motherfucker.”

I sighed.

“Hello, Happy.” I traced his girthy silhouette behind me, double-barrelled shotgun held up to my head.

“What the fuck?” he blubbered. “Who sent you?”

“Business associate,” I said. “I can’t divulge the name obviously. But he’s a regular customer.”

“That right?”

I raised my hands over my head.

“If you reach into my jacket, you’ll find a substantial amount of hard cash I will gladly exchange for hardware.”

Happy circled around suspiciously, coming face to face with my smiling sleeve.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Martin Sinclair,” I said. “And I require some discreet merchandise only you can provide.”

He cocks the shotgun.

“You broke in here.”

“The lock practically crumbled in my hands,” I said. “You really should invest in something more modern.”

“I don’t trust you,” Happy scowled. “You talk like one of those JakSol assholes.”

“Then you know I’ve got cash to spend.”

He stared at me for a moment, fingering the trigger, jowls quivering through overfull cheeks.

Then he gingerly reached into my jacket and pulled out a stack of UN credits.

“Jesus…” he muttered. “You’re walking around the Strap with this much cash?”

I shrugged.

“You want my business or not?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He dropped the double barrels and turned away. “You management types are all the same.”

I let my hands drop and slid them into pockets.

“Weird getup, though. Reminds me of a guy...”

“I was trying to blend in,” I said.

“No one who can afford SynTex would be wandering around the Strap,” Happy said. “Now.” He approached the roller door at the back of the warehouse and punched a control panel. “Consider…”

“Your decade old collection of HugeMart knockoffs?” I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m a businessman, not some junkie that just sold his kidneys.”

“Uh… right.” Happy sighed, approaching the ice-cream cart. “How about-”

“Last year’s CTAC R&D basement sale?” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Dude, are you some resleeved asshole that’s been here before?”

“I want the latest goods and I know you’re not gonna keep them out front for every two-bit whack job to come steal,” I said. “Not with that security.” I nodded at the door.

“Fine,” Happy groaned. “Come on, Mr Moneybags.”

He led me deeper into the warehouse. To an old meat locker that had long since stopped cooling meat. Inside was the loadout Vince promised was coming in this week. And I ran a quick inventory in my head as Happy demonstrated the stock.

“You want the Geary Ticonderoga for quickfire. Semi-automatic. High impact plasma rounds guaranteed to take someone’s head off.” He handed me the pistol. “12 per clip. Accuracy’s a little low but-”

“Accuracy’s not a problem.” I pointed at the target poster at the back of the meat locker and fired. Three bullets left the barrel, gun bucking in my hand but the sleeve adjusted. Three headshots in through the poster.

“You’re payin’ for those,” Happy said.

“Put it on my tab.”

I left the Strap with a bag full of guns, half of them hidden on me and stopped by an empty barber’s that probably didn’t see much traffic on the best of days.

The moustache and beard were really getting to me and I needed to get rid of them before the interview anyway.

I checked my ONI for messages while the barber worked and found one in the emergency inbox from Kristin.

Fuck. How did I miss that?

I hit play.

 _“A-Abboud…_ Her voice drifted into my ears. Shaky. Close to crying. _”Listen, I… I need to know you’re not… doing anything… bad.”_

Timestamp corresponded to the incident at the Raven. Internal tannoy prioritised Neurachem and physical danger over phone calls. It must have pushed the alert aside.

_“Just… call me if you’re around, okay?”_

Why? Is something wrong? Is she in trouble?

_“Everything’s fine. I’m fine, but… I’m worried.”_

Worried? About what? Is she being followed? Are there enemies encroaching on the apartment?

_“Don’t do anything stupid or I will fucking arrest you, you got that?” she said harshly. “I mean it.”_

... 

_“And thanks…”_ I can hear her mouth curving into a smile. _“Thanks.”_

What?

The hell was that?

I tapped the bracelet on my wrist, swiping at the ONI to show me Ortega’s place. It brought up a feed from the security suite and I flicked through the cameras searching for her, for Ryker. But they were nowhere to be seen. The apartment was empty.

I rewound back to the time when she placed the call and found her lying on the bed. No hostiles. No enemies. Nothing as I scrubbed through the footage. Ryker asleep on the couch.

There were no threats my Envoy Intuition could pick out. So why the hell did she call me?

I had Ava Elliot set up that line for emergencies. Did Ortega sense danger maybe? Someone coming for her?

I scrubbed the timeline. Watched her leave the bed, hide guns all over the apartment, under Ryker’s feet. She wandered into the kitchen. She cooked a meal. They sat down to eat. They talked. And then Ryker got up, got angry.

I let it play.

 _“YOU FUCKING WHORE!”_ he shouted and then she clocked him with an Ortega special. And with that hand too.

I couldn’t help but wince.

Ryker went flying. Cracked his head on the wall and collapsed. She ran over and blood covered her hands as she pulled him up.

So much for that happy ending. I sighed, watching the paramedics scramble down the stairs at fifteen times the speed. They packed Ryker onto a gurney and carried him out. Ortega followed, leaving the apartment empty.

 _”What did you expect?”_ Rei whispers into my ear.

I didn’t think she’d tell him. Why the fuck did she tell him?

 _"You thought he loved her,"_ Quell says. _"The way you loved me."_

The barber wiped my face with a towel. The moustache and beard were gone. Hair was short enough to stay out of my eyes but formal enough to pass for well kept.

I littered the counter with bills and wandered out of the shop, keen to walk away from my problems but they weren’t even mine.

 _“Stop caring, Tak,”_ Vidaura says. _“It’ll kill ya.”_

I checked the time and hailed a cab. The trip to the tailor's was swift and uneventful. The rain had cleared up some but as I stepped onto the sidewalk, it hammered down again.

I sighed and jogged the last few steps to the entrance, shaking the water off my hands as I stepped inside.

A bell above the door tinkled to signal the arrival of customers and the closing door must have clued the owner in.

"Bay City, huh?" I heard a quiet chuckling.

The studio was neither small nor large. Several mannequins wearing samples stood posed on the carpeted floor. An arch was cut into the back wall where an unmanned counter stood. And beyond it were rolls of fabric stacked up to the ceiling. My Envoy Intuition traced a strange shape behind the wall and the tannoy did little better to make out a silhouette.

"May as well be the deep trenches of Adriatica some days..." the same voice said ponderously, followed by the whirr of machines, old clockwork and gears. And from the back room, a man emerged. Or half a man, since the torso disappeared into a massive steel chassis with eight spindly limbs.

The Neurachem in my body fired up, stirred by the memory of giant spiders in the caves of Innenin and I froze, trying to convince myself that it was all in the past.

“Come in, come in, Mr Sinclair,” the old man said. “Few drops of water’s no trouble.”

I took several steps forward, increasingly aware of the dripping I caused but my clothes were waterproof on the inside.

“Ah, SynTex leather and polymer, ey?” The spidery gentleman donned a monocle. “You’re not planning on leading a revolution, are you, Mr Sinclair?”

“What?”

“SynTex is a popular brand amongst frequent resleevers,” he said, a cunning glint in his eye.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No matter.” He leaned against the counter. “My name is Leonard Seymour. Welcome to my humble establishment. I hear you're in need of a suit.”

“You heard right,” I said. “Palmino recommended you.”

“As well he should. It’s why I pay him.”

“I’m guessing you ain’t cheap.”

“No,” Seymour said, eyes glinting. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” I said. “But I would appreciate if you kept the questions to a minimum.”

“Of course. I’m nothing if not discreet about my client’s privacy. Please.” He gestured to the arch behind him and I stepped through.

I passed the rack of fabric rolls and a tall steam presser, containers full of thread and needles and a loom and a sewing machine before entering a small clearing in the centre of the workshop.

Everything was very carefully organised, I noticed. Not a button out of place.

Tiny mechanical spider-bots skittered up and down machines and rails upon which suits hung in transparent plastic wrap.

“A little old fashioned, don’t you think?” I turned to find Seymour scuttling in.

“Part of the charm,” he grinned.

“And the cost?”

“Naturally,” -he swapped the monocle out for spectacles- “but the degree of control afforded by the old ways is unparalleled. May I take your things?”

“Uh, I’d rather hang on to them,” I said.

“It will make taking accurate measurements a tad difficult,” Seymour chuckled. “Unless… they’re part of the design.”

“You could say that.”

“Well, then. By all means…” Seymour cleared a long section of workbench and gestured thusly.

I dumped the duffel and pulled out the Ticonderoga, the Phillips squeeze gun, the Weiss EMP generator. Few other knick knacks and knives.

Seymour watched idly, making notes on a small paper pad. And then I stepped back to let him assess the collection.

“I’m assuming you wish to conceal carry,” he said.

“Yep.”

“Through a security checkpoint.”

“Mmhmm.”

“At a big corporate office.”

“That’s right.”

“Would you mind my asking which?”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“JackSol Tower.”

“I see.” Seymour scribbled on his paper pad.

“I need it by the end of the week.”

“A rush job isn’t my style, I'm afraid.”

“Well, it better be for what I’m willing to pay you.” I emptied out the rest of the paper money onto the workbench. “Consider this a deposit.”

Seymour’s eyes ran over the many bills passively, counting.

“That’s ten percent of the total cost.”

“Five," I told him. "And another twenty for your discretion.”

“Now, you’re speaking my language, Mr Sinclair,” Seymour smiled. “Let’s get you measured.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ryker spent the best part of the day in bed under Kristin’s watchful gaze, escaping only to use the bathroom and subsequently steal a cigarette from one of the orderlies. At one point, Ortega caught him sneaking up to the roof in a hospital gown that strained to conceal the entirety of his birthday suit and he froze up like a deer in headlights. 

“Elias, what are you doing?”

“I need a smoke.”

“No, you don’t.” She grabbed his wrist and dragged him back to his room to the sound of grumbling and muffled complaints.

They settled in to watch the news. Images of Laurens and Miriam Bancroft and Reileen Kawahara, Head in the Clouds, hordes of angry Catholics in the streets. All spinning around a news reporter discussing the event with his colleagues.

“Wow…” Ryker muttered absently.

Kristin turned to see his brow furrowed, dark shadows spilling over his eyes. She recognised that look - fury, and despair. He wore it often when a case just couldn’t be closed, no matter how hard he tried or how far he dug. When someone paid their way out of storage and got away with murder. And there was nothing he could do about it.

“He’s been busy, huh?” he said quietly.

Kristin’s eyes fell.

“We all have,” she said.

“Mmm,” Ryker grunted, glaring at the holocoil. “Three Meths in three weeks…”

Kristin’s lips tightened.

“I spent ten years on the force and barely made a dent in OrgDam.” He lifted his hand up to his face, fingers running over the scar Ortega had given him on a night not unlike his last. “Guess I just haven’t been doing it right…”

“Elias,” Ortega shook her head. “He had Bancroft money and connections. He knew Kawahara personally. He’s an Envoy for Christ’s sake.”

“Didn’t need much more than my body to bring these assholes to their knees,” he said, watching the footage of Laurens Bancroft testify.

“Maybe it wouldn’t take three weeks,” he said. “Maybe longer but…”

Kristin put a hand on his. 

“Don’t,” she said, anger bubbling up from deep inside. “This all fucking started because you went after a Meth.”

He glared at her.

“You went and kidnapped a CTAC officer,” she said. “And you would have killed him if I hadn’t followed you.”

She shook her head, feeling tears collecting in the corners of her eyes.

“You went too far and they put you away,” she said. “They took you away so quickly.” She squeezed his hand. 

“What Kovacs did wasn’t just a miracle, it was fucking impossible,” she said, feeling the tears spill over. “I thought I was never going to see you again.”

Ryker frowned.

“And then…” she sniffed. “Fucking Bancroft…”

“Kristin…”

“No!” she yelled. “You have no idea how it fucking feels!”

She shook her head.

“When I saw you… and it wasn’t you,” she said. “When you looked straight past me like I was a stranger. And when you started talking and it was… it was some asshole from Harlan’s World?”

She sniffed.

“I found him in a puddle in Licktown, fighting Panama Rose broadcasts,” she sobbed. “He was high as a kite, and I thought, ‘Oh good, at least that’s something I recognise’…” Her bottom lip trembled.

“Kristin…”

“Don’t even _think,”_ she said shakily, “about doing anything like that, _ever_ again.” She glared at him. “Promise me.”

He met her gaze briefly and the piercing look she gave him forced a guilty sigh.

“I promise,” he said quietly, changing the channel. “I’m sorry.”

The news broadcast disappeared, replaced by a dreary daytime drama that proved to be the perfect frequency to send two tired police detectives to sleep. They awoke some time later to the shrill sound of piercing shrieks, designed to imitate the call of the Elder Civilisation beings on an archaeologue special.

A pair of beat cops showed up around noon and Ortega squeezed Ryker’s hand a little tighter as they walked in.

“Got a call about a domestic disturbance out your way, Lieutenant.”

Kristin swallowed the lump in her throat and was about to reply when-

“Benny?” Elias said, craning his head over the neck brace. “Carlo?” He grinned. “Still rocking the mohicans, huh?”

“Yeah, well, the Lieutenant still hasn’t volunteered to cut my hair...” He grinned sheepishly at Ortega and she relaxed a little.

“Die mad about it,” Elias smirked, squeezing her hand.

“That really you, Ryker?” Carlo said, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Hell yeah, it is. Why?” 

The cops exchanged awkward glances. 

“You wanna talk to that Kovacs son-of-a-bitch? Cos I got two words for you: Fuck. Off.”

“Yeah, that’s Ryker, alright...” Carlo sighed.

“What the fuck do you guys want?”

“Just followin’ up on a call. You know how it is.” Benny shrugged.

“Yeah. It’s a race to see who can interview the most vics while the real cops are out there, wading through the rivers of OrgDam in the streets.”

“You kiddin’, Ryker? No one at the precinct wants to see your ugly mug.”

“Yeah. Benny and I pulled the short straw.”

“Fuck off.”

“Do you have any actual questions for us, Officer?” Ortega said stiffly, going into Lieutenant mode. “Or are you just here for the automat coffee?

Carlo frowned. 

“There was obviously some kind of altercation at your place,” he said. “Any clue as to the perpetrator?”

“Some asshole off the street,” Ryker said quickly and Kristin turned her head. “Burst in lookin’ for a fight and I wasn’t ready for it.”

“Doc showed us the x-ray,” Benny said. “Smashed your face in pretty good.”

“Yeah. Lucky I had enough money to buy a new one.”

“Looks like they ripped you off,” Benny grinned.

“Get bent.”

“So he attacked you. Then what?”

“Kristin beat the shit out of him,” Elias said before she could open her mouth. 

“Jeez,” Benny shivered. “Was there anything left?”

“I…” Kristin struggled. “I just slapped him aside, I… I was more concerned about Elias.” She shook her head. 

“He must have made a run for it.” Ryker brushed his thumb over her knuckles.

“Any idea what he looked like?”

“He covered his face,” Elias said dryly. “Could have been anybody.”

“Literally,” Benny said. “Half the city’s gunning for your head after Fightdrome.”

“That wasn’t me, dumbass.”

“Doesn’t matter. All the lowlifes that saw it think it was you,” Carlo smirked. “And the Lieutenant was there as well, which puts her in their sights.”

“This attack’s probably the first of many.”

“Shut the fuck up, Benny,” Ryker growled. “Can’t you see she’s shaken?” 

“You’re the one with the neck brace,” he smirked.

“I’m practically pissing morphine.”

“What? No Envoy superpowers anymore?” Benny chuckled.

“Welcome to the real world, Ryker.”

“Thanks,” he sneered. “Next time, just send a fruit basket.”

The mohicans shook their heads and pocketed hands.

“And tell Tanaka to keep my badge warm!” Elias called after them. “I’ll be having words with him soon as I get out of here.”

They parted with dark looks on their faces, leaving Kristin and Elias alone in the sterile silence of the hospital room to brood for a while.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said finally.

“Of course, I did.” Elias closed his eyes.

“We should have just told them the truth.”

“And get railed into psychasurgery?” he grumbled. “No, thanks.”

“Maybe we need it.”

“No,” he said, turning his head to look at her. “You don’t.”

She met his gaze. Those dark brown eyes, covered in shadow. The eyes she remembered.

“That stuff gets on your record,” he said. “You don’t want to give them any ammunition against you.”

“I already testified against Kawahara and the Bancrofts.”

“And if their lawyers find out you got psychasurgery, they’ll throw it all out, claim you’re not in your right mind.”

“I don’t think it matters at this point.”

“It all matters, Kristin.” He squeezed her hand. “They’ll take the truth and twist it out from under you until you don’t even believe it yourself anymore.”

“I-”

“They’re Meths, Kristin. They’ll torch your stack just to win their stupid case on a technicality.”

“I know...” she sighed.

His hand drifted up to her face and she leaned into it, reached up to clasp it with her own. 

“Don’t let them do to you what they did to me,” he said, running his thumb over her cheek.

She felt the calluses on his skin, ribbed into shape by the grip of a Nemex series, squeezing the trigger more times than she could count.

“I’m sorry,” she said, angry tears collecting in the corners of her eyes again. “I just stood there and let them take you away...”

“Not much you could have done, babe.”

“Something. Anything…” She shook her head. “And the day I get you back…”

She opened her eyes and several tears escaped their ducts.

“I’m such an idiot,” she hissed. 

“You’re tougher than Martian metal, Kristin,” Elias smiled, brushing the tears away. He slipped the wayward strands of hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ear and gently pulled on her face. She leaned forward and rested her head on his chest, dampening the hospital gown between them.

“It’s alright.” He combed through her hair.

“I lost my temper,” he said. “And you slapped me. That’s nothing new for us.”

Kristin sighed.

“If you still feel bad about it, go talk to your pastor or something but don’t fall for their bullshit, okay?”

“You’re right,” she sniffed, hands clutching at fabric tightly. “I missed you...” 

She felt the soft rise and fall of his chest beneath her. The short exhale of breath as he smiled.

“I love you,” he said. “Now can I please have a goddamned smoke?”

An unexpected chuckle escaped Kristin’s mouth but her answer, was “No.”

The doctor appeared in the late afternoon to remove Ryker’s neck brace.

“You’re a lucky man,” he said, poking fingers into his skull and neck. “Few vertebrae short of damaging your stack.”

Ryker scratched at the old incision scar irritably and pulled at his traps.

“Any pain?”

“A little sore,” he said. 

“I’m afraid it will only get worse as the medication wears off. I recommend another 24 hours in the hospital for observation and some more painkillers to tide you over while you heal.”

“Nah, I want out.”

“I must warn you that any highly strenuous activity, especially the use of Neurachem, could lead to serious damage to your spinal chord and even paralysis if left untreated. ”

“Uh-huh. Can I get the discharge papers or whatever?”

“Elias, maybe we should stay for another day or two,” Kristin suggested.

“No, thanks.” He gestured to the Doc. “Papers.”

“I’m afraid you’re not in a fit state to take care of yourself,” he said adamantly. “I can’t discharge you without consent from your next-of-kin.”

Elias turned his head toward Kristin and something cracked. Very loudly.

“Please…” he wheezed through the pain.

Ortega shook her head.

“Come on...” he begged but Kristin refused. 

She held out for about an hour before she found him tipping over a vending machine to shake a pack of cigarettes loose. She reluctantly signed off on the paperwork and took Ryker home before he could break any expensive equipment.

“I just wanted a smoke,” he explained on the ride home.

“You’re not addicted to nicotine, anymore,” she said. “You don’t need it.”

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else,” he said darkly.

“This isn’t about him.”

“Then why are you so obsessed with me smoking?!" he snapped. "If I remember right, you were just as bad.”

“I quit, Elias.”

“So, what? Now I have to magically quit too?”

“No, but you need to cut back. You just got out of storage, and now, the hospital?”

“You know I can’t do this cold turkey. Look. My hands are shaking.”

“That’s the sleeve-sickness.”

“Damn it, Kristin. I’m not three years old. Throw me a fucking bone here!”

Ortega took a deep breath, guilt poking away at her soul but she pulled the cigarette pack from her jacket and tossed it in his lap.

“One,” she said as he eagerly ripped into it.

The ignition patch quickly lit up the end and he took a long drag, plumes of smoke snaking out of his mouth and nostrils as he leaned his head back and melted into the seat, stretching his legs out as far as the compartment would allow. Ortega turned up the air circulation to filter the smoke coming out of his mouth and set her eyes on the traffic.

It wasn’t much better than the day before and the rain made it difficult, even with the onboard flight stabilisers and scanner. She felt a hand blindly feeling its way over the console and touch her thigh. Elias squeezed it gently, a puff of smoke irritating the craving center in Ortega’s brain.

“You mind?” she smirked, fingers tightening on the steering gear.

The hand quietly slid away and she frowned, watching him lean an elbow against the window, staring into space, smoking.

“Did you mean what you said?” she asked. “About coming back to the precinct?”

“What else am I gonna do, Kristin?” he said without looking at her.

“I dunno,” she sighed. “Get a desk job?”

The thought pulled a throaty chuckle from Ryker’s vocal chords, followed by a strenuous cough. 

“That’s a good one,” he said. “What about you? You gonna get a desk job too? Or do I gotta be the only one to suffer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe....”

Ryker released another smoky trail from his mouth and turned his head to look at her.

“You serious?”

She didn’t look at him. Kept her eyes on the road. She wasn’t sure if she truly wanted out or if she was just scared and confused but the thought didn’t seem so bad after everything she’d been through. Finding a safer line of work, settling down, raising a family. It seemed stereotypical but at the same time, comforting. If money wasn’t an issue anymore.

Ryker didn’t push it, enjoying the rest of his cigarette in silent contemplation and when it was finished, he quietly reached for another but Kristin said, “No,” and snatched the packet out of his grasp before he could blink.

Elias sighed.

_“Ortega eyes...”_

“Did you say something?”

“Nope.” He patted his knees impatiently. 

“I need you to promise me that you’re gonna take it easy,” she said.

“As long as you promise not to hit me again.” He rubbed his jaw.

“Don’t piss me off,” she smirked and stole a glance at his guilty grin.

And then her ONI went off. Notification lit up in the corner of her eye. 

“I’m getting a call from the precinct.”

“From who?”

“Bautista.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, find out.”

“Alright. Just keep quiet.” 

She tapped her bracelet and accepted the call.

_”Sorry to bother you, Lieutenant. Do you have a moment?”_

“What is it, Rodrigo?”

_”Listen, I know you’ve taken some leave but you told me to call you if anything regarding Kovacs or the Raven Hotel came up…”_

Ryker turned his head and Kristin valiantly weathered his murderous gaze.

“What happened?” she said.

 _”Got a couple of scumbags here muttering something about the Patchwork man?”_ Rodrigo said. _”Haunting up the Raven Hotel. Said he murdered somebody.”_

Kristin’s heart skipped a beat.

 ** _“Hijo de puta!”_** she shouted angrily and Ryker flinched, hands splayed from triggered Neurachem. **_“¡¿Eres tonto o tienes una stakka en tu cerebro, pendejo?!”_**

_“I take it you know what they’re talking about,”_ Rodrigo said calmly, accustomed to the Lieutenant’s swearing. _“I know you’re, uh… indisposed but, if you could come by the precinct and deal with them? Save me some time? I got enough on my plate right now.”_

Ortega hissed irritably, turned her head to stare at Ryker and then back at the road.

“We’ll be there in five.”

_“We?”_

She hung up the call.

Elias opened his mouth-

“Don’t,” Ortega warned him with a finger and he promptly closed his mouth.

They made it to the precinct in five minutes flat and touched down in the rooftop parking lot as the rain began to peeter out. 

Ortega was still fuming when she got out of the aircar and Ryker quietly followed her over to the elevator.

“That bad, huh?” He leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

Ortega glared at him with the full extent of her rage, tempted to punch him in the face again but it wasn’t Kovacs she was looking at. It was Ryker, she had to remind herself.

She turned away and took a deep breath, hands drifting into pockets to wrap around a cigarette packet.

“I told him not to push it when he got out,” she said. “I told him I’d arrest him if he ever messed around in my jurisdiction again. And the cabron has the balls to R.D. someone the same day he gets out of storage? In the hotel he was staying at?”

“Sounds like a piece of work,” Ryker said calmly. “Think he’ll be hard to catch?”

“He’s a fucking Envoy,” Ortega growled. “It’s not finding him that’s hard. It’s fucking stopping him.”

Ryker sighed and straightened up as the elevator arrived. He walked in and turned to the control panel only to see Kristin wide-eyed and petrified standing outside.

“You okay?” he said, holding the door open.

“Mmm?” She looked up suddenly. “Yeah.” She took a tentative step forward. “Yeah.”

She shivered as the doors closed and wrapped her arms around herself, hand kneading at her shoulder restlessly.

Elias pulled her in close and pressed her face to his chest.

“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re gonna be okay.”

Her arms wrapped around his waist and he punched the button to the offices habitually.

“They killed Abboud…” Ortega whispered through his shirt. “He was trying to protect me. He promised my dad…”

“I know, babe. I know.” He rubbed her back, thread his fingers through her hair. “There wasn’t a nicer guy on the force, last time I checked.”

She breathed in and out deeply and he felt her pull back. He let go and Ortega straightened up, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. 

“Felt fucking good, though,” she said. “When I ripped out that Leung fucker’s stack.”

“Mmm, I’ll bet,” he said. “Might wanna keep it on the down low, though.” He pointed at the cameras.

“Since when do you care?”

“Kidnapping a CTAC and spending a couple of years in storage makes you paranoid, I guess.” He shrugged.

The elevator doors opened and their senses were assaulted by the humdrum of the bustling police precinct. Officers and detectives and criminals all mixed up and stirring in the big boiling pot of trouble they called law enforcement in Bay City. And as they stepped out of the elevator a few heads turned, sets of eyes stared, following them as they started toward Ortega’s desk where Sergeant Rodrigo Bautista was waiting.

The humdrum died down and activity slowed, resulting in a maze of people standing and staring, perpetuating the awkward silence.

“Well, don’t all roll out the welcome wagon,” Ryker said callously.

He stopped by a mohican that didn’t get out of his way fast enough, towering over the man and casting a long shadow that made him shrink down. They locked eyes and Elias could see the fear in him.

He tilted his head down, darkness swallowing his face.

“What are you looking at?” he growled and the mohican all but squealed.

“Ryker!” he heard a familiar voice and straightened up.

He turned to find Tanaka sticking his head out of a glass door across the precinct.

 _“Captain,”_ he said, something of a sneer invading his face.

“My office.”

Kristin’s hand touched his elbow.

“You, too,” Tanaka nodded at her.

“Like old times, huh?” Elias grinned.

“You’re gonna be the real death of me.” She shook her head and pushed him forward.

The dirty looks followed them all the way to Tanaka’s office but pretty soon, everyone was back to work.

“Have a seat,” Tanaka said as they both came in.

“Guess we’re doing this now.” Ryker melted into a chair and Ortega sat down beside him.

“I’m not sure how much the Lieutenant has told you-”

“All of it,” Elias said, turning his head slowly to look at her. “I assume.”

She nodded.

“Even the parts I didn’t like,” he smirked.

“I see. Well-”

“What?” Ryker said. “You gonna apologise?”

“I understand that you may harbour some misplaced aggression toward-”

“-the fuckers that threw me under the bus?” Elias growled. “You knew what they were doing.”

“I wasn’t aware of specifics.”

“You knew I was onto something,” he seethed. “And they pulled at your leash.”

“All the evidence pointed to-”

“You mean the evidence you and Kadmin planted on me?” Ryker growled.

Tanaka sighed.

“The evidence Kadmin planted was enough to arrest you. I was just doing my job.”

“I was staring down double barrels, Tanaka!” Ryker roared. “Two hundred years for your little Meth overlord’s whorehouse cover up job.”

“You kidnapped a CTAC officer!”

“He was dirty!”

“And you were high!” Tanaka slammed the desk. “You’re not a fucking saint, Ryker. You never were.”

“You fucked me over! Admit it! You wanted me gone.”

“Regardless of what I wanted, you went too far,” Tanaka said. “And there was nothing neither I, nor Ortega, or anyone except a fucking Envoy, could do about it.”

“So this is about Kovacs?”

“You owe him,” Tanaka said, pointing a finger. _”We_ owe him. Our lives and more.”

“Can’t believe this...” Ryker leaned back in his seat.

“You want your badge back.”

“You better believe I want my badge back.” He leaned forward to point at the desk.

“Then you need to earn it.”

“Fuck that. I earned it twenty times over.”

“You’re a mess, Ryker,” Tanaka said. “You’re a junkie and a loose cannon and you have the lowest rate of cleared cases in the precinct.”

“Cos you put me in Sleeve Theft when I had no fucking connections,” Elias argued. “You should have kept me in OrgDam where I could work the leeway.”

“I put you in Sleeve Theft because you rattled OrgDam so hard we had to chain prisoners to the walls to keep them from jumping you!”

“Fuckers deserved it. The shit they pulled...”

“You had no right to retaliate the way you did.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, at least, we’re not finding pieces of little boys floating around in the sewer anymore.” He grimaced.

Tanaka sighed.

“Listen. You caused a scene. You ruffled some feathers so I put you in Sleeve Theft as a form of punishment with every intention of transferring you back to OrgDam when the heat died down.”

“I knew it.” 

“Sleeve Theft needed new blood. Someone the black clinics wouldn’t close their doors to the moment they saw them.”

“And how did that go, huh?” Ryker said. “About as far as Mary Lou Henchy’s corpse in the Lake before they stored me.”

“I admit, Sleeve Theft was the worst possible Division to put you in and I’m sorry.”

“Finally. A fucking apology.”

“I meant what I said, Ryker. You want your badge back? You gotta earn it.”

He didn’t move.

“I want you sober,” Tanaka pointed at him. “I want you focused. And I want you to show me that I can trust you. Otherwise, you’re back on the beat.”

“You can’t be fucking serious.” Elias splayed his hands.

“No one wants to work with you,” Tanaka said, tapping at the keypad of his terminal. “Can’t imagine why...”

Ryker scowled.

“But I understand the Lieutenant has returned from leave early.” He looked at Ortega. “And you, I owe a favour.”

Her lips tightened.

A plastic card popped out of the desk and Tanaka took it, examined it briefly and handed it to Ryker.

He swiped it out of the Captain’s grasp and stared at his new ID badge.

“You’re kidding me.” He lifted it up beside his face. “A Visitor Pass?”

“It’s more than you deserve.”

Ryker sighed out a dangerous breath.

“And one more thing,” Tanaka said, turning back to Ortega. “You told Blake and Fernandez someone attacked you in your home?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that what really happened?”

“No. But it’s the story we’re sticking with,” she said firmly.

“So, there’s no maniac breaking into your apartment for some clumsy attempt at revenge? I don’t have to put a protective detail on you two, do I?”

“No.”

“Alright,” he sighed. “Get out of my office.”

They reluctantly left and Ryker slammed the soft-close door a little harder than necessary on his way out. He followed Ortega over to her desk with his hands in his pockets, scowling and towering over everyone else in the precinct.

Kristin looked up at him briefly, checking to see that he was still following but she didn’t say anything. Elias was in one of his moods and she knew better than to goad him. It was like a holocoil was broadcasting a stormy raincloud over his head.

“Lieutenant,” Bautista said, getting up from his seat. He’d taken up Abboud’s desk in the aftermath of his passing. “Good to see you.” He shook her hand.

“Nice to see you, too, Rodrigo.”

He offered a hand to Ryker but he drifted away and sat down in Ortega’s chair, legs bent and spread apart, rotating in place as he seethed.

“Ah. Well. Thanks for coming.”

“What’s the story?”

“You know the Hook End Vipers?”

“Two-bit freakshow with slit-eye augments,” Ryker grumbled without looking over. “Small time tet dealers.”

“Yeah, well,” Bautista continued. “Couple of kids from the local chapter came in today, broken and bruised and muttering something about a Patchwork man. Said he did it to ‘em, killed their leader and picked out his stack.”

“Good,” Ryker grumbled and Kristin gave him the stink eye. “What?”

She shook her head.

“Anyway, they said he’s holed up in the Raven hotel, the one that got nuked when the, uh…”

“You can say it, Bautista. I’m not gonna crumble into a thousand pieces.”

“Whatever. You know what I’m talking about.” He shrugged. “You said that if anything hit my desk with all those keywords you gave me, I should call you.”

“Mmm, thanks,” she said. “Where are these guys?”

“Interrogation room 4 and 5. Here’s the keys.”

“Thanks, Bautista. I owe you coffee.”

“I take it with milk and two sugars.”

“I’ll remember that,” she smiled. “Come on.” She nodded to Ryker and he peeled himself off the chair. She slapped the Visitor Pass onto his coat and it fused to the fibres but he didn’t complain.

He followed her silently toward the elevator and gently touched her shoulder as they approached, guiding her body toward the stairs instead. She sighed in relief and took the steps down to level two where the interrogation rooms were located. 

There was far less traffic on that floor and far fewer people to stare at them as they passed.

Kristin stopped at the door to Interrogation Room 4 and looked up at Ryker.

“Maybe you should wait in the observation room?” she said.

“And let you have all the fun?”

“I’m serious.” She pressed her hands to his chest. “You’re still not a hundred percent and if you can make it through an interrogation without crippling the witness, it would give Tanaka more reason to trust you.”

“Nnngh,” he growled. “I don’t like it.”

She raised a hand up to his cheek and thread a thumb into his frown. “I know.” She pulled it up. “But I’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, I know…” he muttered. 

“You’ll hear everything they say.”

“I know…” He stared at her but his eyes were unfocused, she could see. Staring into space. One minute. Two. 

“Hey!” she called to him. “Are you okay?”

He shook himself suddenly.

“I’m fine,” he said stiffly. “I’ll be in observation.” He stalked past her and around the corner.

She waited until he was gone and frowned.

 _”He’s gonna be distant. He’s gonna space out,”_ Kovacs had warned. _“Coming back from the dead is a bitch.”_

She took a deep breath and keyed the door.

It slid aside and revealed a scrawny Asian kid with the augments Ryker mentioned. He was sporting some massive bruises and a plasma burn on the forearm. Looked fresh.

He flinched when the door opened and cowered a little as Ortega walked in.

She slapped the file down on the table and leaned into it with both hands to demonstrate control over the situation as she sat down.

“Bunda Yaozu,” she said, flipping open the file. “Twenty years old. Original sleeve. Arrested on minor trafficking charge three years ago but… not old enough to be tried so… we had to let you go...”

“Please,” he said. “You gotta do something.”

Ortega looked up.

“He’s crazy, man. Fucking psycho.”

“Who are you talking about?”

Bunda leaned in close over the table, nodding for Ortega to do the same but she abstained with a quizzical eyebrow.

“The Patchwork man…” Bunda whispered.

Kristin frowned.

“What did he look like?”

“Uuh… like… like a guy. Uuuh. He had dark hair. And a moustache. And uh, he was wearing this black merc getup.”

Kristen’s mouth tightened as she recalled her trip to Alcatraz only yesterday, fingers tightening against the file in her hands.

“And what did he do exactly?” she said more calmly than she felt.

“He… he took out the whole squad,” Bunda said. “This one guy, he just… thrashed us. It was so fucking fast and… then he shot Maro.” His eyes filled up with horror. “I thought he’d got the stack but then he took Maro’s hook and… he carved it right out of him.” He swallowed. “Like he’d done it a hundred times. With this crazy smile on his face.”

“You’re saying the Patchwork man killed this Maro guy?

“Yeah..." Bunda's eyes grew unfocused. "Held up his head like some kind of trophy. Tossed it to Xui and he fucking dropped it. He…”

“Did he destroy the stack?” Ortega said, trying to keep her composure.

“I… I don’t know,” Bunda said. “We got out of there as soon as we could.”

“So… sleeve kill on... Maro, did you say his name was?”

“Maro Tamihana,” Bunda said quickly. “He was our Kaiarahi.”

“Your leader?”

“Yeah…”

“Did he kill anyone else? This... Patchwork man?”

“No,” Bunda said. “He got some of plasma rounds off at some of the others. Broke Leng’s leg... but...”

"But what?" 

"He was just playing with us," Bunda said breathlessly. "He could have killed us all. Cut off our heads like Maro..."

Ortega closed her eyes and opened them very deliberately. She was two seconds away from snapping.

“What happened to Maro’s head?”

“Dindin dumped it in the bay,” Bunda said. “He was fucking terrified. We all were. We ran. The others tried to hide but I knew it would be useless. I convinced Hani to come in with me.”

“What about Maro's stack? Did he take it?” Ortega asked, trying to stay impartial.

“I… I dunno. He was… he was still holding a chunk of his spine when we left...”

“I see,” Ortega nodded. “And you say all of this happened at the Raven Hotel?”

“Yeah. That place is fucking cursed, man!” Bunda shook his head hysterically. “Even AIs can’t live in there. Not with the Patchwork man...”

“Mmm,” Ortega agreed superficially.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Bunda leaned over the table. “I’m telling you, the Patchwork man’s in there. He’s gonna blow your stack if you go in there!” He was shouting now, almost incoherent.

“DON’T GO IN THERE!” he screamed as Ortega got to her feet. “STAY AWAY!”

Kristin took a step back.

“THE PATCHWORK MAN’S GONNA BLOW YOUR STACK!”

Ortega retreated toward the door as Bunda tried to climb over the table, interrupted by the handcuffs that chained him to the surface.

“DON’T GO IN THERE!” he screamed as she left the room and keyed the door shut.

Her heart was beating a little too fast and she swallowed the lump in her throat. Images of the Wei Clinic and Jack It Off surfaced in her mind. Rivers of dry blood and body parts. The smell of faeces and death.

_”You should be thanking me.”_

“Fuck,” Ortega sighed as Ryker came striding in. 

“You okay?” He reached out.

“I’m fine.” She waved him off. “But when I find Kovacs... I’m going to tear him a new fucking asshole!”


	6. Chapter 6

The suit was going to be expensive but if Seymour could pull it off I’d have a hell of an advantage going into JakSol. I picked up a few off-the-rack pieces he had in my size, paid him for his trouble and left with my purchases.

Shopping was an acquired taste Vidaura had instilled in me during reconnaissance training. Almost anyone could pass for an innocent bystander browsing for wares. Markets were the same on almost every planet inhabited by humans and Vidaura was a pro. By the time she haggled the vendor down to half price, she’d learned his entire life story, regional dialect and family secrets, all while looking over her shoulder for any sign of spies through the mirrors in his stall. 

_“The best way to spot your tail is to let yourself be followed.”_

But there was no one tailing me when I got back to the Coronado. The restaurant in the lobby was filled with an entirely different set of middle management suit-wearing nobodies and Jorje was-

“Welcome back, Mr Sinclair!” 

-at the front desk.

“Hey,” I said, noncommittally.

“Can I help you with those bags?” He rushed over.

“I’ll be fine, thanks.” 

“Oh, I insist.” He reached for the heavy duffel bag - the one filled with weapons. 

“Fine,” I said, shoving the plasto-packed suits into his hands. “Suit yourself.”

He tapped the button for the elevator and smiled at me.

“Did sir get his hair styled today?”

I shot him a glance. 

His face was bright and beaming, tan brown skin like Ortega’s. Same hair colour. Slight curl to the locks.

“It looks great,” he said with an excitable nod. “Shame about the rain.”

“Mmm...” I pushed the wet strands out of my face.

The elevator arrived after what seemed like an eternity of avoiding Jorje’s gaze and we stepped inside. I’d planned to confront him anyway. Might as well do it in the room. 

He was most likely the UN lackey assigned to my case but he seemed too young. Then again, if anyone could fake an ID, it was the Protectorate. Wouldn’t be hard for them to resleeve an agent into the hotel receptionist’s body to keep track of me. Made sense, except that he didn’t see all the places I’d been, or the things I’d bought. Maybe that’s why he tried to man-handle the duffel bag?

“So, any plans for dinner tonight?” Jorje piped up around level 3. “I can recommend some good restaurants if you’re interested.”

“Anywhere that does a decent bowl of ramen?” I wondered absently.

“There’s the Flying Fish up at the docks,” Jorje said enthusiastically. “They’ve got the best view of the bay and award-winning Japanese cuisine. There’s usually a pretty big line to get in but I can try to get a reservation...”

“Maybe later,” I said, disappointed. Only on Earth would you find someone giving out awards for a simple bowl of ramen. Like it wasn't the cheapest thing my mother could scrape together to feed us.

I turned my gaze up to the indicator.

The elevator arrived shortly and I stepped out, followed closely by my tail as I made my way to door number 2203. Lock scanned my thumbprint and let me in. Jorje followed.

The room had been serviced and the bed was made. The curtains were pulled apart to reveal the impressive view of skyscrapers and neon and traffic and rain and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as I turned away from it.

The Envoy Total Absorb sucked it all in and a wave of malaise rolled through my body, numbing my hands. I dumped the duffel bag on the floor and turned to find Jorje carefully arranging my new suits in the wardrobe.

I tapped the automatic controls on the window and the shades began to close, the curtains draw. I’d learned my lesson about drone surveillance from Miriam Bancroft. She caught me off guard with Merge9 that night but it wasn’t going to happen again.

“Oh…” Jorje turned, sensing the room darken. White ONI rings appeared in his eyes and some of the lamps in the room lit up with soft light. 

I didn’t need it, not with the augments in my sleeve.

“Let’s cut the crap, shall we?” I suggested.

“Very well.” Jorje smiled.

He pulled off the ONI contacts and stored them in a little case he returned to the pocket of his pressed black vest. No weapons I could see. None the augments could detect. Didn’t look like a combat sleeve but then again, neither did mine.

He walked toward me casually.

I stoked up the Neurachem, feeling it buzzing inside my limbs.

“I know you’re watching me,” I said, provoking a reaction.

“Mmm, what gave it away?” Jorje smiled, his angelic innocence melting into condescending amusement. 

Here we go...

He came closer, slowly, like a swamp-panther stalking its prey. 

I psyched up the Envoy Intuition, pulling for signs of danger, tells of an incoming attack. But it gave me nothing. And then Jorje was near. Too close for comfort. If he had a knife laced with poison I was no longer in a position to block it.

I took a step back to give myself space but he wouldn’t let me have it and when I held out my hand, he grabbed it and pulled me in for a headbutt but it wasn’t our foreheads colliding.

His lips locked onto mine and I felt his tongue slipping into my mouth, the taste of mint on his breath. 

I froze in place, trying to keep the Neurachem contained, trying to keep my body from launching him through the window and down twenty two stories onto the cold, rain-soaked street. 

Jorje went through the inside of my mouth like it was covered in anko and sugar powder. I jerked my head back but he grabbed the lapels of my coat and pulled himself up to reach my mouth, insatiable. Unquenchable lust. I could smell it on him. But why couldn’t I sense it before?

_”Expect nothing. Only then can you be ready for anything.”_

I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t expecting this. Wasn’t living in the moment like I was supposed to. 

Soak it all in and live it, breathe it. That’s how Envoys worked. But I completely missed the cues. The signs. The details. Or was I ignoring them? Trying to impose my own order on things? Unable to let go...

“What’s wrong?” Jorje whispered, detaching himself from my mouth.

“I, uh…”

“Are you cold?” he said, brushing a hand through the wet strands of hair on my head. “Hot shower should warm you right up.”

“I’m just, uh… little tired.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” He straightened the lapels of my coat, running his hands over my chest. “Busy night, last night.” He winked.

Did he know? How? Did he see it?

“I was hoping we could…” He leaned in again. “...you know.”

Was this about the Raven? No. It couldn’t be. What the hell was going on?

“You’re right,” I said. “I need a shower.”

“Mmm…” he licked his lips. “I’d hop in with you,” he said, “but I have to get back to work.”

He kissed me again and I fought the Neurachem down. Flushed it out of my system but it filled up my cock instead. The Syntex was already expanding and I quickly shoved a hand in my pocket. Pulled the coat in to hide the growing bulge.

An agonising eternity passed before Jorje finally let go of my face. He winked at me and turned to leave. I was about ready to explode when he stopped and turned back.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, halfway across the room. “Message came in for you.”

He pulled a folded piece of paper from his vest pocket and held it out to me.

I grabbed it with my free hand.

“Thanks,” I managed.

“See you tonight?” he said.

“We’ll see.”

He smiled shyly and finally turned to leave. The door closed behind him and I just stood there, staring at it, harder than a leatherback in heat.

What the fuck was happening?

Envoy Cool? Total Control? Where the fuck was it back there?

I slid down the wall and sat on the floor trying to reign it all in but the sleeve had other ideas. I felt myself detaching, drifting away from it. I became an observer, a passenger, watching as the body moved on its own, fulfilling its own needs as I sat helplessly behind the eyes and watched.

A hand disappeared down SynTex trousers and pulled out the thick hard cock it found inside. Jorje had left the wardrobe door open and there was a man reflected in its surface, looking at me, smiling. And then he started masturbating. And I could only watch.

I heard groaning and panting but it was as far away as it was close. Like I was jacked into the cheapest VR porn construct at the Newpest pleasure booths but I’d walked into the wrong one.

It wasn’t me. My mind refused to believe it.

Psychoentirety rejection, they called it. Or just fragmenting. And this was the worst I’d experienced in years. Frozen behind eyes that weren’t my own. Dark secrets dancing in their reflection. And I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop him. Not till he finished, moaning as he came right in front of me. The smiling son of a bitch.

 _”Breathe,”_ Vidaura said. _“Move. Control.”_

It took several deep breaths to get that Control back online. Envoy Cool to dull the emotions, sympathy. Psychoentirety rejection was a precipitant of residual self-image. Envoys didn’t have one. Or weren’t supposed to. 

_”You’re not a body, Tak."_

No. Just a consciousness that thinks it has a body for some reason. I wasn’t going to delve too deep into it now. 

The Envoy Cool drowned out any intrusive thoughts and I retreated into the darkness it offered. The state of now, where nothing mattered, no emotion, just the mission, just the moment.

I bent my fingers, trying to move, regain mobility. And it worked. The sleeve succumbed to my will and soon the man in the mirror was me again. They were _my_ hands, lying either side of _my_ body. One of them clutching the note Jorje had given me.

I stared at it breathlessly and then sat up to unfold it.

 _“Stay on him,”_ is all it read.

I scanned it six times with my augments but it didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. Just a piece of paper, torn out of a book. A journal, maybe? The paper was rough, recycled. From one of the colony worlds. But that could mean any of the thirty something planets that cultivated resources and shipped them to Earth. Expensive stuff. 

I stared at the scrap of paper in my hand, feeling my Envoy Intuition stirring.

This note wasn’t for Takeshi Kovacs.

Jorje gave this message to Martin Sinclair or whoever he thought I was. 

And he knew me. Personally. More personally than I would have liked. But I had no memory of any interactions with Jorje from the previous night. 

When I checked in, there was a girl at the counter. I paid for my room and she gave me the key. I stripped and collapsed into bed to ride the tetrameth high after scrubbing my hands practically raw on the Raven’s floors.

And then I woke up in the Coronado.

No memory of Jorje, though he seemed to have some very vivid memories of me. Or this sleeve. From last night.

I tapped into the internal tannoy, looking for memories, recordings from the time when I fell asleep. 

Nothing.

Darkness. 

Five hours and twelve minutes of it. But sleep's easy to imitate on retinal implants.

_Missing time, Tak? That’s not a good sign._

Fragged personalities had a tendency to split. Break into small pieces. Even spill into different sleeves like Kadmin had.

_The patchwork man-_

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” 

I threw the note but it didn’t go very far. Paper doesn’t have much weight to it.

I saw the words again as they drifted down in front of me.

 _”Stay on him,”_ they echoed through my head.

I refocused on the mirror. Dark eyes stared back.

And I had the familiar feeling that I was being watched.

 _”Stay on him, Tak. We’ll rendezvous over the hills at midnight,”_ Vidaura said in a split second exchange. Passing notes between hands. 

The time before is blurry. 

I was beginning to learn. Beginning to remember. Basic Training was over and that’s when the Total Recall started. When I could take in everything and retain it indefinitely.

But that wasn’t something Quell taught me. It wasn’t the Envoys that developed the technique.

 _“Get to the next screen, Takeshi,”_ I heard her voice. And then Vidaura’s, overlaying each other. _**”Get to the next screen.”**_

I shook my head and got to my feet. The pants slid down to my ankles and I sighed, stepping out of the rain-soaked boots. 

I pulled off the rest of my clothes and trudged into the shower for the second time that day. This time, to wash the cold sweat and cum off my sleeve. 

I let the water run. Let it burn at my skin. Trying not to picture Sara and the last shower she’d ever taken. The apartment in Millsport where we died. 

I pushed it aside, drifting deeper and deeper into the Envoy Cool where nothing mattered. Nothing had context or emotional baggage. Stuff just was, just happened. And that’s how it was supposed to be.

I flicked the temperature control down to freezing but the icy cold water that rained over me had no effect on my body, save closing its pores. I was in the zone.

I towelled off and wandered out of the bathroom, eyeing the pile of SynTex on the floor. And as soon as the thought of cleaning it registered in my mind, the internal tannoy automatically submitted a laundry order to the hotel.

I stepped over the pile of black synth leather and boots, and delved into the open wardrobe to examine my purchases. Three suits. Two pairs of shoes. Threes ties. Six shirts. Seymour even custom-tailored underwear to fit his designs but the Envoy Cool left me completely indifferent towards all of it.

I grabbed the first thing I saw and pulled it on, hands mechanically administering clothes, brushing away lint and smoothing out creases. Actions clearly bred by daily habit. 

I made an effort to care, to register each movement as it unfolded, trying to avoid another frag. It was clear that my personal opinions and preferences weren’t aligned with the sleeve’s physiology and not only was brute force CTAC Body Control failing me but the Envoy conditioning was barely holding it together.

_”This sleeve is a tool. It doesn’t control me. I control it.”_

Yeah, easy to say when you’re two hundred years dead, Quell.

I checked the mirror again, hands running over cuffs and collars. 

The suit wasn’t made to order but still fit pretty well. The sleeve had a deceptively slight build that fit most modern fashion standards, making it easier to purchase clothes and swap disguises. 

I remembered an old Scandinavian shock trooper body I had as I shrugged on the jacket. Seven feet tall and jacked enough to tear through my uniform enough times to make Vidaura order custom. And when I tore through that, she gave up and resleeved me instead.

I buttoned the jacket and stepped into the shoes. They autolaced and tightened around my feet, perfectly fit.

My hair was drying out. Succumbing to gravity. I brushed it back with a drop of gel and my hand traced the missing moustache, circling down to the clean shaven chin as if searching for the hair that was supposed to be there. A bodily reflex.

But at least I wasn’t smiling.

I grabbed the duffel bag and left the room, disabling the cameras as I went. I was getting the hang of the augments now. The internal tannoy. The commands required to control the virtual, bleeding into the real. 

I scratched at the port at the back of my head as I waited for the elevator.

CTAC soldiers don’t have jacks. Protectorate policy. Otherwise, anyone could hijack themselves a killing machine, including the revolutionaries they were trained to fight. 

I got my first taste of true virtual when I joined the Envoys. It was what gave them power. Instantaneous contact, communication, information. They marketed themselves as innocent Dippers, and when they got wind of a weak spot in the Protectorate’s impenetrable shield, they would needlecast in and strike.

The elevator doors opened and I stepped inside. The tannoy tapped into the elevator’s system and selected the service floor. It was off-limits to guests but not to me and I stood there, waiting, enjoying the silence while Envoy Cool kept my ghosts at bay.

But it was a short journey and upon arrival, the whirr of autolaundry machines and steamers assaulted my senses. There was no one down in the dimly lit hall. Only the appliances programmed to wash and clean and iron. Couple of cameras, easily avoided.

I wandered into the shadowy corner at the far end, where the illuminum tiles had faded with age and the freshest footprints bar my own, were over twenty years old. My connection to the Array began breaking up, too weak to be sustained. The sleeve traced the outline of a simple door in the wall. It’s lock was broken, handle hanging by a hair.

I dumped the duffel bag on the floor and pulled out a toolkit. It took a few minutes to remove the old lock and install a new one. Mechanical. With a physical key. Hard to find, usually, but not on a planet like Earth.

The Raven’s digital locks were useless now. I practically had to tear the door off its hinges last night to get through. But after a few minutes of screws and bolts, I had the lock working. A primitive, if effective stopper for any curious Coronado employees like Jorje.

I disappeared into the darkness of the Raven’s service corridor with my duffel bag over my shoulder. One floor up was where the Hotel’s matrix core and memory backups were stored. All fried. But the connections to the public Array node would still be there.

I poked my head in when I reached it, searching for signs of a disturbance but finding none.

I left the duffel bag there and continued on my way, climbing the emergency stairs that would take me to the surface. If all went as planned, I had a package waiting for me in the lobby. Couple of boxes full of tech. Nothing major. It was mostly software licenses I needed. JakSol were picky like that.

And sure enough, the crates were there, highlighted by the light streaming in through the rotating doors.

The delivery guy hadn’t stayed long, judging by his footprints. The whole lobby was squeaky clean otherwise. Just like I left it. 

I cranked up the Neurachem and carried the boxes down to the hotel’s matrix core to unpack. The steely crates were filled with foam flakes and padding. Big access terminal in one of them. Whole mess of cables and scaffolding in the other.

I decided to set up in the surveillance room with the big comfy chairs, uncertain who they were for since Poe was an AI, but his obsession with all things human didn’t rule out accommodating guests, even down here. 

I brushed the dust off the dark machines and installed a new access terminal on a bracket and flexarm. Small generator pack saw it boot up and initialise and I sat down to dig through the third crate. 

It was full of nothing but hard disks. Licensed software and keys that took the best part of an hour to install and load correctly. Then came the practice discs. 

I dialled up the time differential and prepped the construct but when I reached into the crate for VR trodes, I found none. 

“Damn it…”

I dug through the packaging irritably, searching for the missing accessory but then it occurred to me - I didn’t need trodes.

I sighed, reaching up to scratch the back of my head where the data-jack was. An internal implant positioned either side of the cervical vertebrae of the spine. Few hundred impossibly thin fibres threading in and up into the brain to transmit electrical signals. 

I’d never worn a sleeve with a jack before. Combat specialists never get loaded into fancy teched up bodies. Too expensive when you’re likely to end up shot in the head in the middle of a warzone. I was lucky if someone bothered to recover my stack.

I pressed my fingers into the metal cylinder tucked under my hair and it ejected upon release. I pulled out the jack and the cable that came with it, feeling the coil unravelling inside my skull.

“Lovely…”

I plugged it into the terminal and waited for the initial connection and the plug lit up like a SunJet blaster. I winced, weathering the static shock it sent travelling down my spine. Complete white out for several minutes. Evidently, the jack was still wet from the shower.

I pulled it out and sat there, breathing in the smell of burnt hair and flesh, cursing my own mistake. 

Dipping and hacking were never my strong suit.

What I learned from the Envoys was enough to get what I wanted but that knowledge was two hundred years out of date. If this plan was going to work, I needed to learn how to do this and how to do it well because there wasn’t a single person in the world that I could trust to do it for me. Specifically, to keep their mouth shut if the Protectorate caught them and tortured them for information. 

And there was no doubt they would.

If the UN found out what I was after, if they got any hint as to what I was planning, they’d send in CTAC and they would make what Kadmin did to me look like a fucking picnic.

I had to do this on my own. And I had to do it right.

I took a deep breath and plugged the jack back into the terminal. This time, the connection was successful. 

I felt the cable buzzing as data poured in, overlays upon overlays opening and then closing as adapters and drivers were installed and tested and then finally, I was in.

Full control of the terminal and all of its software simply by thinking it. But my thinking was clumsy, at best. The big button to initiate the sequence was right there and waiting. I concentrated on selecting it but instead, several unnecessary windows and programs opened up and closed, the colour scheme cycled through every hue of the human spectrum and then something beeped. But I didn’t hear it. I felt it. Through the cable. Data, imitating my senses.

 _“Hi there!”_ I heard again and turned my head reflexively, searching for the source. But the room was dark, only my augments let me see any part of it. And those parts were devoid of life. 

_”It looks like you’re having trouble working your data-jack. Would you like to run through a tutorial?”_

“Where are you?” 

A new overlay popped up in the HUD. Small window with the face of a young boy in a very tall conical purple hat that was decorated with stars and crescent shaped moons.

 _“I’m right here,”_ he said, throwing his arms up and smiling. _“My name is Bobby. I’ll be your personal assis-”_

I closed the window and turned my attention back to the VR simulator and the big button beckoning me to start. I concentrated hard but instead of initiating the sequence, a new window popped up. An undecipherable jumble of Amanglic characters typed into the search bar but returned no results.

 _”I’m afraid the system can’t connect to the Array.”_ Bobby chimed in apologetically. _”Would you like me to troubleshoot?”_

“No.”

 _“I can run a diagnostic on your networking systems to see what the problem is. We’ll get you up and running in no time!”_ He appeared again in an overlay window.

“Gods…”

 _”No connection found,”_ Bobby said. _”Well, there’s your problem._ He pointed up at the network indicator with a long stick that also had a star on it. _”You need to hook your terminal up to the Array.”_

“Not to run practice disks,” I said.

 _”Would you like me to run some practice disks?”_ Bobby responded enthusiastically, leaning out of his window. _”What kind of time differential would you like to use?”_

I took a deep breath.

“Listen. I didn’t pay for any dumbass AI to-”

 _”Oh, I’m not an AI,”_ Bobby said happily. _”I’m the wizard that comes preloaded with all TLC Displacer systems post 2382.”_

“Great. How do I shut you off?”

_”Oh, that’s easy! You just need to open up your Preferences and navigate into the Personal Assistant settings and there’ll be a really big disable toggle. You can’t miss it.”_

I scanned the heads up display, looking for a way to bring up my Preferences and opened up the calculator function instead.

So much for Envoy Intuition.

“Fine,” I said. “Run me through the tutorial.”

 _“Sure! Would you like to use a time differential?”_

“Yeah.”

 _”Please select an option or input your own.”_

A list of ratios appeared in front of me but the fastest available was 1:50 and I didn’t have the time for that. 

“1 to 300,” I said.

_”I’m sorry, that ratio is over the recommended maximum time differential threshold. Please select another.”_

“I _said,_ run it at 1 to 300.”

_”The selected speed has been shown to cause irreparable brain damage and is not recommended for standard human physiology.”_

“I’ve got a data-jack and internal tannoy to handle the processing,” I told him. “It’s a short-stay construct. I’ll be fine.”

_”I’m afraid my settings prevent me from enabling any speed over the recommended maximum time differential threshold.”_

“Then I want to change your settings.”

_”Sure! Let me just bring them up for you.”_

An overlay appeared and Bobby reached down from his little window to point out the Developer Options with his wand.

 _”Just, uuh… think really hard about this,”_ he said.

I cocked an eyebrow.

_”It’s locked down to prevent tampering but you seem to have all the correct licenses to operate it.”_

“Right…”

I stared at the letters, concentrating on the words and felt the datajack heat up. Serial numbers filled in. License keys exchanged. And then the overlay disappeared. Another took its place.

 _“Great! Let me just scroll down here…”_ Bobby leaned out of his little window and flicked the panel up with big sweeping motions. It stopped at Safe Mode. 

_“Oh! Here it is.”_ Bobby grinned. _”Just flip this toggle to disable the safety features.”_

I concentrated on the toggle. The effect wasn’t instantaneous but eventually, it flipped. And then the overlays disappeared.

_”Rebooting system…”_

Everything went dark and the terminal switched off. The buzzing in the jack stopped and I was alone again, in the Raven’s basement. 

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair.

The terminal rebooted and a single overlay appeared - a pitch black command console with a white cursor that disappeared intermittently, awaiting input.

I stared at it for a while, unsure how to proceed. Maybe it was a stupid idea to do my own recon.

“Uuuh. Bobby?”

 _“Hi there!”_ The window reappeared, complete with bright and beaming digital boy. _“Would you like some assistance?”_

“Yeah,” I said, already regretting it. “Can you run me through the tutorial?”

 _“Sure! Would you like to use a time differential?”_

“Yeah. Set it to 1 to 300”

_”Would you like to save this as the default setting?”_

“Yes.”

 _”Option saved.”_ Bobby said. _”Would you like to begin the tutorial?”_

I took a deep breath and glanced up at the timestamp in the corner of my vision.

17:13:45

“Yes.”

_”Okay!”_

And then it hits me. Not a jolt like last time, more like a blast up the jack but the pain is fleeting. 

I’m in a white room. There’s a floor but no walls or ceiling. And I have no body. But Bobby is there. Free of the window, I can see that his long purple cape touches the floor.

“Let’s go over the basics, huh?” he grins. “Computer systems are based on the concept of binary switches - 1 or 0. The human equivalent of this is yes or no, on or off, etc. Let’s try it. Answer my question by thinking yes or no.”

And so it went on, for what seemed like an hour but I finally wrapped my head around the controls. 

“You completed the tutorial!” Bobby said. “Congratulations. Would you like to unload?”

“No.” I practised the skills for a little while and then I just waited for the timer to reach 60 minutes.

“Alright. I’m done,” I told Bobby.

And with a wave of his wand, the room vanished.

I returned to the Raven’s basement where my body was left reclining on one of the comfortable chairs, eyes closed.

I check the timestamp.

17:13:57

12 seconds in real time. 60 minutes in virtual. Lossless conversion so far.

 _”Are you feeling okay?”_ Bobby asked. 

“Yeah.” 

_”Are you sure? Overclocking the brain can cause migraines, nausea, dizziness, loss of balance, memory loss and fatigue while prolonged stays can lead to-”_

“I’m fine,” I said, scratching the port at the back of my head.

_”It is recommended that you do not touch the data-jack until it has been safely ejected by the system-”_

“I thought I turned off the safety features.”

 _”Oh…”_ Bobby said, sinking down in his little window until his nose reached the border. _”I guess you did.”_

He looked down at me curiously.

 _”I just have all these numbers here…”_ he said, sheepishly pulling out a long roll of parchment to examine.

“What kind of numbers?”

 _”Recommended maximum time differential ratios, brainwave readings, electrical impulse reaction test results…”_ The parchment spilled out of his window.

“Are you spying on me?”

_”Oh, no, sir! I’m programmed to keep benchmarks of each stay in virtual so that I can provide you with useful tips for maintaining neurological health.”_

“Uh huh…” I smirked. “And what’s the verdict?”

 _”Well, according to my numbers, your brain should have atrophied by the fifth second of that stay. But you seem to be unaffected.”_ He scratched his chin thoughtfully. _”And this is clearly your first dive since you asked for the tutorial…”_ He frowned. _”Or… maybe it isn’t? You’ve got all the licenses and hardware...”_

“Don’t think about it too hard, kid.”

_”Okay, sir! Is there anything else you want to do?”_

“How about those practise disks?”

He reached down into his little window and picked up an armful, lifting them into view but a few escaped the pile and fell back down.

 _“Which one?”_ he said.

“All of them.”

 _“All of them?!”_ Bobby dropped the disks in surprise.

“How long will it take?”

 _”Uuuh….”_ He scratched his head. _”If you spend the average recommended time on each of them? Around 6 months.”_

“And how long in real time?”

_”At your current time differential settings?”_ Bobby said cautiously. _"Around 14 hours."_

“Alright then, hook me up.”

 _”It is recommended that you take regular mind, nourishment and bathroom breaks every two hours. Would you like to set up a wake up call for these intervals?”_ He pulled out an antiquated alarm clock with stars on it.

“Bobby,” I sighed.

_”Yes, sir?”_

“Why do you think I disabled the safety features?”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully, scratching his head with the wand.

“I did it so I wouldn’t have to listen to every single safety warning the dipshits at TLC programmed into you,” I said. “Now load up the practice disks and let me worry about when my sleeve needs to take a shit.”

 _”Yes, sir…”_ Bobby sighed. _”One super unnecessarily dangerous short-stay construct coming right up.”_ He rolled up his sleeves and doubled his grip on the wand. _”But maybe you should…”_

“Bobby.”

_”Initiating sequence...”_


	7. Chapter 7

Ryker drummed his fingers over the counter impatiently, glaring at the barista behind it. The young woman was hastily grinding coffee beans and heating milk in terror. This was Elias’s third trip down and he’d elected to skip the pleasantries of queueing after the first. A raucous chatter of disapproval had built up as a result and continued to drift over his shoulder. And then something touched him.

The Neurachem in his body flared up, like a jittery old alarm that gave him more false starts than actual warnings. The jolt sent adrenaline coursing through his veins and he took a deep breath, drumming his fingers over the counter at an inhuman speed.

“Excuse me,” a middle aged man said but Elias didn’t turn. 

“Excuse me,” the stranger repeated, tapping his shoulder once more and Ryker stopped drumming.

“There’s a queue," the voice said.

“That right?” Ryker turned his head an inch, catching the man’s reflection in a mirror tile on the kitchen door. 

Small. Portly. Smelled like expensive cologne. The kind they still wore up at City Hall. A civil servant type. 

“You need to wait your turn like everyone else,” he said and Ryker calmly turned back to the barista, hastening her rapid-fire coffee making.

“Did you hear me?” the voice continued. The judgemental finger jabbed at Ryker’s shoulder blade and he turned so abruptly the offender flinched.

“There’s a queue, d’ya say?” Elias took a step forward, towering over the man.

“I… uh…” 

“Gotta wait my turn, huh?” 

Ryker grabbed the man's pristine white collar and lifted him off the ground with no effort at all, Neurachem sparking between nerve endings.

"Well, I got news for you,” he said, glancing down at the nametag. _“Jerry.”_

He narrowed his eyes, watching Jerry tremble.

“I'm done waiting,” he growled. “I’ve been in storage long enough.”

He leaned in close.

“It’s my turn now.”

“O-order up,” the barista called timidly and Ryker let go of Jerry’s collar. He fell to the floor as Elias turned to pick up the six cup caddy.

“Thanks,” he said, dumping his loose change in a jar. “You’re a doll.”

He sauntered out of the coffee shop, straight into the rain, hand delving into his coat to pull out a pack of cigarettes. 

A hovercycle stacked dangerously high with crates raced past him as he made his way through the Fell Street crowd, parting the bustling sea of people by simply refusing to move. 

He brought the ignition patch up to the cigarette in his mouth as the awning of a nearby building curtained off the rain. The end burned up slowly and he stopped to smoke in front of a department store so bright with neon, it might as well have been the sun.

_”50% off Feishun apparel. Today only!”_

_”Come in and try our new collection of edible fragrances. Free samples.”_

_”Sleeve in need of a pick me up? Try reguviblaster!”_

_“Help! Somebody, please help!”_

Elias opened his eyes and realised he’d inadvertently closed them. A cloud of smoke escaped his mouth as he turned his head, searching for the source of the noise.

“Help! Please!”

There. The southwest entrance to the department store. A woman on her knees. The crowd closing in.

He turned on his heel and cut through the throng, shoving people out of his way until the shouts were deafening but no one had stopped.

He squinted through the blinding neon lights, trying to make out her silhouette.

“Ma’am?” Elias burst through a group of teenagers and found her sitting on the sidewalk.

“Help! Somebody, please...” she moaned, clutching at her leg.

“Detective Ryker, Bay City PD.” He knelt down beside her.

“Oh, thank goodness.” She grabbed his hands. “You have to help me.”

“What? What is it?”

“I need you to die, you son of a bitch.” She keyed the detonator in her hand and Ryker felt the Neurachem shoot through him. He reached out and grabbed her fist, keeping her thumb pressed down tightly on the trigger.

The woman frowned, jerking her hand back, trying to pull away. But Elias was stronger.

“Cute,” he said, feeling a smirk coming on. “You make this yourself?”

“Fuck you!” she hissed, reaching into the folds of her dress for another weapon.

“Let me guess.” He rose to full height, pulling her hand up along with the rest of her body. 

“I ruined your life,” he said, pressing a boot into her back. “Shot up your boyfriend. Or maybe one of your junkie relatives.” He shrugged. “Killed the sleeve but the stack was coded. Couldn’t spin them up. No one got punished and your friends got RD’d.”

“That about right?”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch...”

“You see me at Fightdrome and decide to pick a fight of your own.” Ryker looked down at her whimsically. “Real creative.”

“Gregor was my life!” she screamed up at him. “And you shoved his head in a combine harvester!”

“Right... “ Elias smirked. “Wait, you mean Gregor the Fence?”

“Gregor Kowalski!”

“Yeah, the Fence,” Ryker said. “He used to sell these garbage detonators to ladies on the street.” He looked down at her. “I left about as much of him as he left of them.” 

“You arrogant piece of shit!” She pulled a knife out and Ryker tightened his hold on her hand. He heard an unpleasant crunch as her fingers broke, one by one, still clasping the detonator tight and she screamed, dropping the knife to grab at her wrist.

“What the hell’s going on here?!” A security guard from the department store appeared.

“Police business,” Ryker turned with a smile. “I caught this woman stealing from one of your stores. I’ll be escorting her down to the Fell St station for processing.”

“Uh… alright.” The guard looked him over and backed away.

“C’mon, darlin’.” He pulled the woman in close. “We’re going for a walk.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” she hissed.

“Yeah, you and the rest of this city.”

It was a short trip to the station and an exceedingly long escalator ride up to the main floor during which every single police officer in the precinct had time to side eye Ryker’s captive and Ryker himself.

He paid them no mind as he strode through the offices with the same casual saunter as always. 

It was a madhouse. With men milling about, herding criminals and victims through the maze of cubicles and rooms. And the woman he was holding captive pressed in a little closer.

“Delivery,” Ryker said, setting the coffee caddy down between Ortega and Bautista.

“What took you so long?” she grumbled, nose buried deep in paperwork.

“I got distracted,” Elias said, waiting patiently for her to look up.

“Well, get undistracted. We could use a hand.”

“Yeah, third bus just pulled up,” Bautista said, swiping a file on the screen.

“Can’t,” Elias said. “I’m not allowed to sign any papers, remember?”

“I’ll sign them,” Ortega shook her head, “just-”

The roll of her eye caught the woman Ryker held hostage.

“Who’s that?” she said.

“My assassin.”

Ortega shot him a murderous glare of her own.

“What?” He shrugged. “She tried to kill me.”

“Why didn’t you arrest her?”

“I don’t exactly have a badge or handcuffs.” He shrugged. “You wanna read her rights?”

“Why are you holding her like that?” Ortega looked at the crushed fist in his hand.

“Detonator,” Ryker said. “You got an EMP defuser?”

“You brought an active explosive into the precinct?!” she hissed at him, looking around nervously to make sure no one else could hear but inevitably, Bautista was alerted.

“Explosive?” He got out of his seat.

“Yeah, you remember Gregor the Fence?”

“Sure. You got suspended for two weeks after that cock-sucker died.”

“Remember the cheap-shit detonators he used to make?”

Bautista scratched his head and Ortega furrowed her brow.

“No.”

“Well, they kinda went off as soon as you triggered them.”

“And you’re not blown up because…”

“Haven’t released the trigger yet.”

 _“Puta muerde...”_ Ortega shook her head and pulled open a drawer in her desk and then another. Bautista did the same. They rummaged through them and Rodrigo finally pulled out a small stick with a steel ball on it.

“Here we go.” He held it out and pressed the button. The steel sphere split in half and upon release, swallowed Ryker’s closed and pale fist. 

“There’s gonna be a breach,” Bautista said. “You don’t have any implants do you?” he asked the woman Elias was holding captive. Olive skin and deep brown eyes. A little empty. And very lost. 

She shook her head slowly.

“She’s in shock,” Ortega said. “She can’t answer you properly. Do you know her name?” She looked up at Ryker.

“Nope.”

“Seriously?”

“She tried to kill me. The details are a little sketchy. Can we deal with the detonator situation now?”

“We can’t just let off an EMP without identifying her,” Ortega said. “What if she’s got a pacemaker and she’s coded Neo-C. You’re asking me to RD this girl?!”

“I’m asking you to defuse the detonator,” Ryker growled. “Unless you’re planning on buying a new sleeve for everyone in the precinct.”

“Hey!” Tanaka shouted across the office. “You got a problem, take it outside!”

“No problem, Captain,” Bautista said calmly.

“Then get back to work. Another bus just showed up.”

“Yes, sir,” they all muttered and Tanaka disappeared into his office to answer several phone calls at once.

“Alright,” Bautista said. “I’m doing this but if shit goes down, I’m pointing the finger at you.”

“Deal,” Ryker nodded.

“You can’t be serious,” Ortega hissed but Rodrigo was already squeezing the trigger. 

A flash of light passed through the opening around Ryker’s fist as the electromagnetic pulse rendered the circuitry useless. The sphere unravelled and Elias finally loosened his grip on the woman’s wrist. He felt pins and needles the size of steak knives stabbing his fingers but it was nothing compared to the mangled mess he’d left of her hand. 

She was still clutching the detonator. But she didn’t make a sound.

“Hey,” Ortega said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s your name?”

The brown eyes found hers for a moment.

“Jin.”

“Okay. Jin,” Ortega said. “I’m gonna get you some help.”

“Uh, she did try to kill me,” Ryker pointed out.

“Are you planning on pressing charges after what you did to her?” Ortega said coldly.

“No, I just…” He sighed. “You’re really gonna let her off?”

“Look around!” Ortega threw her arm up. “Bakalanas and Wu Tang just had a shootout in the Panhandle. You want this girl to share a cell with the lot of them tonight?”

“No…”

“Then she can’t stay here,” she said. “Bellick!” She pointed at a passing mohican. “Grab a squad car and get this girl to the nearest hospital.”

“But I’ve got orders to-”

“Now!”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

Ortega blew a lock of hair out of her face and sat back down, watching her inbox pile up with messages. She picked up one of the coffees from the caddy and took a sip.

Judging by the cringe in her lips, it was cold.

“Sorry,” Ryker put his hands in his pockets.

“Don’t worry,” Bautista grabbed a cup for himself and tapped the bottom. “We get ‘em from Pako’s cos the cups reheat.”

“Nice.” Elias took one for himself.

“I need to get a statement from Dominga,” Ortega said, suddenly rising. 

“Why not let me do it?”

“Because I sent you out for coffee and you came back with a hostage and a bomb,” she said. “Take over for me. I won’t be long.”

Ryker watched her swaying hips as she marched away, ponytail bobbing in time. 

He sat down opposite Bautista and looked at the screen Ortega had opened. Seven documents at once with an incoming message every second.

“Jesus…” he groaned.

“Welcome back,” Rodrigo chuckled from behind the screen. “You miss it?”

“Would almost rather go back to storage when I see shit like this…” Ryker said, flicking through the case images and footage. 

The shootout in the Panhandle started with three Wu Tang nobodies spilling a thickshake on a Bakalanas Lieutenant. The same guy whose brother had his sleeve killed by a Wu Tang up-and-commer six months prior. After a hell of a lot of apologising and gifts, a begrudging peace was finally restored to the Bay City underbelly but those kids had no idea.

What began with three dead nobodies, ended with sixteen sleeve kills, seven RDs and enough civilian OrgDam to warrant three precincts chartering buses to bring in the perps.

Ortega had barely finished her interviews with the Vipers when they rolled in and unloaded, swamping Fell St in blood-stained Bakalanas. Wu Tang went to West Add and the victims were funneled through Park Station, straight into USBC Medical.

“What a nightmare,” Ryker frowned, typing at a report from all the interview transcripts coming in. 

“Just a regular ol’ Wednesday in Bay City,” Bautista said between typing and sipping coffee. “You missed out on the fun of having every asshole from the Panama Rose in here for questioning.”

“Yeah. Well, apparently, you missed one,” Ryker frowned, glancing up from the screen.

“Sorry about that,” Rodrigo said. “Kinda short-staffed around here and the leadership’s not exactly rock-solid.”

“What?”

“You know Tanaka’s in hot water, right?”

“I heard.”

“And the Lieutenant isn’t exactly working 9 to 5.”

“She’s been through a lot.”

“No arguments there. But she’s not here most days. And the Sergeant…” Rodrigo sighed and shook his head. 

“How well you know Abboud?” Ryker said.

“Not well. He was good at his job. Old friend of Ortega’s dad.”

“He really take a bullet for her?”

Ryker caught the dark brown eyes staring at him through a semi-transparent part of the terminal between them. Rodrigo was nodding. And then shaking his head.

“It really is you in there, isn’t it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means I watched the doors of that elevator open and blood pour out,” he said, stabbing the air with a finger. “Abboud was lying on the floor with a hole in his stack and you shoved me out of the way to pick up what was left of the Lieutenant.”

Rodrigo shook his head again, swallowing and clenching. His eyes flickered back toward the screen and after a moment of silence, the erratic typing resumed.

Ryker watched him for a few minutes and then slowly shifted his gaze toward the elevator. The one Ortega couldn’t step inside.

“Shit…”

He turned back to the terminal only to be assaulted by three new memos, a transcript, six officer reports and a transfer request. Ortega returned half an hour later with a written statement and sat down on top of Ryker to type it up.

“How much did you get done?” she said, attacking the keyboard.

“Uuuh…”

“What have you been doing?” she said quizzically.

“You know I suck at paperwork.”

“Urrgh…” she groaned but diligently typed up a report and then several more Ryker failed to witness on account of falling asleep.

He woke up several hours later when the bulk of the criminals had been processed and crammed into the precinct’s overworked holding cells. It was just Ortega finalising reports for the Captain now. The mohicans were beefing up security in holding and the detectives were either called out or gone home.

The sudden chill of Kristin’s missing body heat woke Ryker up.

“Hmm?”

“You’re awake,” she said returning with a copy of a copy of a report.

“Mmm. Yeah. Anything happen?”

“Thankfully, no.” She sat down on his lap again, flipping through the pages of mugshots scowling back at her.

Elias wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her tight, peering over her shoulder.

“Anyone else I should know about?” he smirked at a portrait of a Bakalanas goon.

“Pssh.” Ortega blew at a lock of hair. “You’re never gonna let me live it down, are you?”

“It really hurt," he said absently, rubbing his cheek against her. “Do you have my meds?”

“Mmm? Yeah. They’re in my jack-” She froze. “A- Are you?”

“Oh… sorry.”

“No, I…” She pulled away to stand, revealing the stiff bulge in his pants. 

Elias caught her staring and looked up.

“Do you wanna…?”

“In the middle of the precinct?!” Ortega hissed.

He shrugged.

“Suit yourself.” Elias sheepishly scooted a little closer toward the desk to hide the boner.

Kristin smirked as she reached into the pocket of her jacket, hanging off the back of her chair. She rummaged around for the bottle and triumphantly withdrew it to exmaine.

“Here,” she said, putting two pills down on the desk. She checked the pyramid of coffee cups for any that still had dregs and placed it beside Ryker's hand.

“The Doc said you get two of these every four hours.”

“Mhmmm,” Elias groaned, trying to reign in the hormones. “He also said I should spend another day watching holodramas in bed.”

“Better than watching me file a hundred police reports.” She folded her arms. 

“No kidding. How the fuck do you do this without blowing your brains out?” Ryker croaked, dry swallowing the pills.

“It’s the job.” Ortega folded her arms. “Used to be your job too.”

“I don’t remember it being this boring.” He rubbed his face.

“You’re just tired,” Ortega said, suppressing her own yawn. “You should be resting.”

“I think I’ve had enough rest,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m almost done,” Ortega said. “Few more minutes and we can go home.”

“What about the Raven?” Ryker said suddenly. “You said you wanted to check it out.”

“That was before three Wu Tang idiots decided to get themselves and half the city involved in a gang war.” 

“From what those Viper kids told you, I’m guessing the Patchwork man could give them a run for their money.”

Ortega frowned. Elias was right. One sleeve kill and seven cases of OrgDam and Kovacs was only one night out of storage. He could go on a rampage at any time. If there was an opportunity to prevent it, she had to go. 

“I’ll drop you home and ask Bautista to come check it out.”

“What? You’re gonna leave me behind?”

“You’re not well.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m not made of glass.”

“You don’t have a badge,” she said. “You don’t have a gun. And if you pick a fight with an Envoy, you are going to end up with more than just a broken jaw. And there’s no amount of money that will bring you back.”

“Do you seriously think he’s still there?” Elias smirked. “He slags a guy, cuts off his head, beats up his cronies and you think he’s gonna sleep in the same place.”

“You don’t know, Kovacs.”

“But _you do,”_ Ryker cocked an eyebrow and Ortega’s lips pursed together. 

“Yes. And as weird as it may sound, I think he’s still there.”

Ryker sighed. 

“Sounds fucked up to me but you’re the boss.”

“I’m not taking you with me,” Kristin said sternly.

“And I’m not reaching into the bottom drawer where you keep your father’s service pistol,” he said, leaning down.

“Hey,” Ortega grabbed at thin air as he ducked.

“Here we go.” Elias pulled out the Beretta X9.

“Give that back.” Ortega lunged for it but Ryker got out of his seat and held it up high, just out of reach.

“Oh, no. Looks like it’s caught in some weird anti-grav field.” He grinned.

“Elias, this isn’t funny,” she growled, jumping up to swipe at it.

“I know,” he said, leaning in to kiss her as she landed on the ground. 

She fought him briefly and grabbed at his clothes but then her face relaxed, her lips softened and she kissed him back.

“God, you two. Get a room,” Bautista grumbled, returning with more coffee.

Kristin’s lips slipped away and a blush flooded her cheeks as the Sergeant cleared away some empty coffee cups from his desk.

“Would you- uh… I wanted to ask if you’d-”

“-cover for the Lieutenant while we check out the Raven Hotel?” Ryker intercepted and received an angry glare from Ortega.

“Oh, right…” Rodrigo said. “Forgot about that.” He sat down. "Sure."

“Actually, I was wondering if you’d come with me,” Ortega recovered.

“Sorry. Can’t. Someone just found another murder weapon at the Panhandle. Forensics boys are running it now. I’m supposed to call West Add as soon as it comes in.”

“Right…”

“I’m sure you two can handle it,” Bautista shrugged. “What are the chances the perp’s still at the crime scene?”

Ryker cocked an eyebrow and grinned slyly at Ortega. Her expression was one of thinly veiled anger.

“Right…” she said through gritted teeth. “I guess we’re leaving then.”

It took fifteen minutes to clear up and then another fifteen to scale the staircase all the way up to the roof where Ortega had parked her aircar. Night had fallen, casting an increasingly dark shadow over Bay City’s perpetually dusky streets. But the rain cleared up, and it didn't take long to reach the Raven Hotel.

Coronado Street was central to the Tenderloin. Once called Ellis Street, it was home to a neat little lineup of hotels that catered to the city’s guests, not too expensive yet not at all low end. But one of the hotels was not like any of the others. AI establishments rarely were. And nuked AI establishments were even harder to come by. Ortega was surprised some land developer hadn’t seized the opportunity to buy out the building and renovate.

“Must have good lawyers,” Ryker said absently. “AI play by the book.”

“You think Poe wrote a will?” Ortega said as she landed unceremoniously on the sidewalk.

“Hell, if I know.”

“Right…” Kristin sighed, switching off the vehicle.

Ryker grabbed the door handle but Ortega reached out to stop him before he could pull it.

“Let’s go over some ground rules.”

“Urrgh… Kristin…” Ryker groaned.

“Either, we do this my way, or I take you back to the hospital for a check up.”

“Fine.”

“Rule number 1: let me do the talking.”

Elias blinked.

“Are we clear on rule number 1?”

“You know I’m gonna clock the bastard when I see 'im.”

“Elias!”

“Fine, fine. You do the talking.”

“La Hostia..." she muttered angrily. "Maybe you should wait in the car?”

Elias yanked the door handle open and stepped out before she could say anything else. He slammed the gullwing closed and stomped through the puddles of water reflecting neon from every hotel except for the Raven. It’s dark interior was less than inviting and Ryker frowned, turning back to say, “We’re gonna need a flashlight.”

Ortega sighed as she got out of the car.

“Sure. You want a blow job, too?”

Ryker smirked and returned to the car to help her search for the flashlight in the trunk. Kristin found it first and Ryker found a second jammed between a medkit and an anti-grav jack.

“Full loadout?” he asked, eyeing the boxes of ammo.

“Don’t even think about it,” Kristin said. “We’re here to investigate a crime scene, not shoot anyone.”

“Unless it’s self-defense.”

“Elias…”

“You said this guy was dangerous.”

“He can be reasoned with.”

“Yeah… _reasoned_ with”

“Shut up.”

She slammed the boot closed and flipped on the flashlight as they walked up to the entrance. The light scattered over the glass surface of the round revolving door, only barely illuminating a few feet inside.

This wasn’t Ortega’s first crime scene investigation at the Raven Hotel but last time, the interior had been bright and welcoming. With a small army of MEs, forensic specialists and police officers to boost her confidence.

This time, it was pitch black.

Kristin pushed at the revolving door and squinted to make out the tiled floor beneath her feet as she stepped inside the building, pointing the flashlight down to see anything at all. She turned the dial up to maximum, extending her range of vision up to twenty feet. Ryker came up beside her to double the width of the light source. And together, they examined their suspiciously innocent surroundings.

“Little tacky for my taste,” he said, pointing his flashlight at a red silk tablecloth and candlestick holder. 

Ortega frowned.

“I guess he’s not here.”

“You sound almost disappointed,” Ryker smirked, taking a step forward to explore the lobby.

“Something’s not right,” she said. “This place is spotless.” 

She made her way around the many pieces of furniture and ended up at the bar. Where Kovacs had sat on his first night in Bay City, nursing a beating from Dimi the Twin in a sea of booze and cigarette smoke.

He wasn’t there anymore. But the bottles were. Sparkling and clean as the light passed through them.

“Someone’s been in here,” she said.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“I mean, apart from the Vipers. And very recently.”

“You think Kovacs hired a cleaner?” Ryker smirked.

“Or someone hired one for him…” Ortega pondered as she left the bar.

“Well, there’s no body,” Ryker said. “No blood. No sign of a scuffle, a firefight or even life.” He swung his torch around at the walls and ceiling. “They said it happened in the lobby?”

“Yeah,” Ortega confirmed. “By the fire escape.” She pointed to the inconspicuous door frame that was easily missed in the busy Gothic decor.

Ryker turned and wandered over.

“You said he might stay here.”

Kristin nodded uncomfortably.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to sleep with a dead body in the lobby and blood on my hands either,” Elias said.

Kristin met his gaze and he didn’t have to finish the thought.

“His room’s on the thirteenth floor,” she said and pushed the fire escape door open.

The flashlight revealed the staircase and together, they climbed silently up the antique wooden steps. Elias had to stop several times, neck sore and muscles tense. Kristin was just tired, but the idea that Kovacs might be waiting at the end of the staircase made her heart beat uncomfortably fast.

The door finally revealed itself under torchlight and Kristin took a deep breath before she twisted the handle. The sound echoed through the stairwell and she turned back to check that Ryker was still behind her and for a split second, she saw Kovacs, before her eyes adjusted.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“I’m fine.” She pulled the door open and walked into the hallway, halfway down from the room where Kovacs had stayed.

“This way,” she said with a little speed in her step. And a lot more trepidation.

Ryker followed along, one hand holding the flashlight, another wrapped around the grip of Francesco Ortega’s service pistol.

Ortega slowed down as she came to the door at the end of the hallway. A small skip of the light and a shadow made her realise that it was open. And she froze.

Ryker stopped.

Ortega gestured to the door and to be quiet.

She turned down the brightness of her flashlight and tiptoed down the corridor, flanking the door.

Ryker mirrored her movement and tightened his grip on the gun.

Ortega held up a fist and then gently pushed on the open door to extend the crack, holding the flashlight low. She craned her head and peered in to see the floor and then slowly raised the flashlight to illuminate the bed. But it was empty. 

She shone the light left and then right, searching for a body or an attacker but it soon became clear that the room was empty.

She opened the door wide and slowly stepped inside, followed closely by Ryker who was openly brandishing the revolver now.

But no one attacked them. No one appeared from behind closed doors. There were no bodies. Or people. Only furniture. An incredibly well-made bed.

“Guess he’s not as crazy as you thought,” Ryker said, lowering the gun.

Kristin sighed and hugged her arms, feeling an odd chill coming on.

Ryker wandered over to inspect the closet and opened it up to find a decent amount of clothes, all hanging neatly on the rack.

The pocket of a certain coat was hanging slightly heavier than its counterpart and something inside it caught his eye. Elias reached in and wrapped his fingers around three thin glass vials. He pulled them out to inspect and quickly recognised the tetrameth inside. 

“Find anything?” Kristin called to him.

“Just clothes,” Ryker said, slipping the ampoules into his pocket. “Looks like he might be staying here, after all.”

“Hmmm,” Ortega pondered, coming closer to inspect. “They’re not his size anymore.” She picked out a sleeve.

Ryker frowned, realising what that implied.

“You like any of it?”

“No,” he said quickly and walked away to inspect the bed. Red silk sheets, decadent goose feather duvet and superflex mattress. At least, that’s what was written on the pillow menu.

“This where it happened?” he said and Ortega visibly bristled.

“No,” she said, cheeks burning. “This is where he… nevermind.”

She leaned down and checked under the bed but like everywhere else, there was nothing to be found.

“We’re wasting our time,” she realised. “Someone’s been over this place with a fine toothed comb.”

“You know anyone that provides that kind of service?”

“I’ve heard of a few groups but it’s almost impossible to get into contact with them,” she said. “And you’d need Meth-level funds to use them.”

“Is Kovacs at Meth level yet?” 

Kristin furrowed her brow. “No… I don't think so.”

“Well, then. Looks like he has a patron.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ortega said. “Both Miriam and Laurens Bancroft had their funds seized when they were arrested.”

“Couldn’t have been all of them,” Ryker pointed out. “Meth like Bancroft would have a secret stash somewhere.”

“No,” Kristin said. “Kovacs made a deal with the UN to testify against Bancroft. They can’t be working together.”

“What did he get from the deal?”

“A new sleeve.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, he got a full pardon and a few million credits from Bancroft before he turned him in.”

Ryker frowned.

"What about Kawahara? You said they were related."

"Kawahara's really dead and all her assets were seized by the UN, same as Bancroft."

"Psychasec's still open," Ryker said. "Still making dough for Bancroft."

"He can't touch it. Not unless his lawyers can get him off murder one."

"Hmmm. Maybe it was another Meth?" Ryker pondered. "Hired Bancroft's personal Envoy out from under him. Killed three birds with one stone. "

"I don't think so," Ortega said.

“This cleanup job probably cost a few million,” he said. “No way Kovacs would spend that much on it unless he was planning to stay here long term.”

Ortega frowned.

"You said he was from Harlan's World. So why would he stay in Bay City? Unless someone made him an offer he couldn't refuse?"

“You don’t know him,” Kristin said. 

“And apparently, neither do you.” He gestured to the immaculate guest room.

“Let’s just get out of here.” She shook her head.

They left the room and wandered down the hall and Ortega caught the shape of a footprint in the velvet carpet. It wasn’t the familiar boot prints she and Ryker left wherever they went. The nose of this shoe was pointed, the sole was flat. There was only one. And it made Ortega shiver.

“What is it?”

“That wasn’t there before,” she said, pointing at the shoe shaped indent in the carpet.

“You sure?”

She shook her head.

“We should leave.”

“How about I go first?” Elias suggested, propping up the Beretta with his flashlight.

Ortega swallowed and nodded.

She pulled out the Phillips squeeze gun and worriedly handled the grip.

“It’s clear,” Ryker said, after glancing into the stairwell.

Ortega nodded and followed him in.

They travelled slowly, wary. And silent.

The whisper of footsteps echoed in their ears. And Ortega could swear she heard more footsteps than just their own. But they were coming from below. Somewhere down below.

She swallowed again, finger on the trigger, flashlight on their 6 as they travelled back down.

_Damn it, Kovacs._

They made it to the ground floor without incident but the tension was palpable as they approached the door. Whispers of footfalls could be heard, even now, when Ortega and Ryker stopped moving.

There was someone in the lobby. And she feared she knew who it was. Should she call out to him? Or was she wrong? Would she simply be giving away their position to a stranger?

Maybe this was their chance to capture one of the cleaners?

She swallowed hard and looked to Ryker. He nodded for her to make the call.

She deliberated for a moment and then finally,

“Kovacs?” she called out, a little meeker than she’d meant to.

The word echoed nonetheless through the stairwell and presumably out the door but no one answered.

“Kovacs?!” Ortega shouted this time, using the anger that welled up inside her whenever she heard his name. “Kovacs, I know you’re there!”

Echoes and whispers of echoes. And then nothing.

“Joder...” she said.

Ryker put his hand on the door and nodded slowly. Ortega counted to three. And then they burst through, guns out to assault an empty lobby that threw silence in their faces like a slap.

Their hearts beat a little faster and Ortega was breathing heavily, nerves firing left and right.

“Kovacs?” she called out again, nervously pointing her gun into the darkness. Their flashlights illuminated twenty feet of tile and some neon managed to find its way through the revolving door at the lobby entrance but the rest of it was covered in shadow. The perfect place for someone to hide.

And then she saw him. The meager silhouette of a man with ONI rings in his eyes, white and piercing.

“BCPD! Come out with your hands up!” Ryker shouted.

“Ah, of course, of course,” the man said with a heavy Latin American accent and the ONI rings disappeared for a moment.

He took an audible step forward. And then another. 

It took six in total for him to reach the light. 

Expensive brown shoes appeared, followed by a tight fitting suit, buttoned smartly but casually, only once. His hands were up, demonstrating the gleaming gold cufflinks and soon, the creamy white tie. He smiled as he stepped into the light, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth. Tanned skin and dark hair and even darker eyes.

“I surrender,” he said with a sly little smile.

“Kovacs?” Ortega hissed. “What the fuck?”

The man turned his attention to her, ONI rings bright as he scanned her from top to bottom.

“Lieutenant Kristin Ortega,” he said, and turned his head, “Señor Elias Ryker.”

“It’s Detective.”

“Oh?” the man said with the same sly smile. “My mistake.”

“Kovacs, this isn’t funny. I know what you did.”

“I’m afraid you have me confused with this… eh… Señor Kovacs.”

“Stop it,” she said. “Stop it right fucking now!”

The man’s playful smile disappeared and he looked to Ryker for assistance.

“Kristin,” he said. “Are you sure?”

“I-”

She stared into those dark eyes, searching for that knowing look that seemed to pierce her very soul. But it wasn’t there.

“I don’t know,” she said, redoubling her grip on the gun. “I saw you,” she said. “When you got resleeved.”

“I see,” he said. “It is understandable that you may be confusing me for another.”

“Who are you?” Ryker growled.

“My name is Ignacio Domingez dello Fuego,” he said, reanimating the smile. “I run a small cleaning business here in Bay City.”

His ONI rings lit up and Ortega saw the notification in the corner of her eye. Data transfer. Identification. Documentation. Licensing. Insurance. More information than she would ever need.

Ryker glanced at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Looks legit,” she said. “A Meth pay for all this?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ignacio said. “I have worked very hard all my life to get where I am now.”

“What are you doing here?” Ryker said.

“Conducting an inspection.” Ignacio shrugged. “My company was contracted to clean this hotel by the keeper of the late owner’s estate.”

“Where’s the body?”

“The owner was an AI. There was, fortunately, no body for my people to dispose of.”

“I’m talking about Maro Tamihana,” Ortega said. “Sleeve kill last night. In this fucking lobby.”

Ignacio shook his head.

“I do not know this... Maro Tamihana. And I can assure you that no sleeves were killed in this lobby last night." He chuckled to himself quietly. "I may work my people to the bone but that is simply… how you say? Organic Damage?”

“Cut the crap,” Ryker spat. “We know you work for a Meth. So fess up. Which one of those cocksuckers hired you?”

“I do not know whether the late owner’s estate was inherited by a Meth. I was contracted by a law firm named Fitzgibbon and Welsch. I have their information too.” The ONI rings in his eyes lit up and Ortega received a digital business card on her end, matching the names he gave.

She hesitated for a moment, firearm shaking in her grasp. 

And then she lowered the gun.

“It’s not him,” she said.

“You said-”

“I know. I know…”

“You are looking for this… Señor Kovacs, yes?” Ignacio said.

Ortega sighed.

“Yeah. You seen him?”

“No, but if you can provide a description and full name, I can ask my employees whether _they_ have seen him.”

“He’s-” Ortega began, staring at the man she could have sworn was Kovacs yesterday. “Forget it.”

“Oh? Are you sure? I would be happy to assist.”

She shook her head.

“No. Thanks. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.”

“Are you serious?” Ryker said suddenly. 

“Yeah. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Oh, so he just conveniently showed up at the hotel where there was supposed to be a murder?”

“We could hold him for 24 hours for questioning. That’s about it. And the precinct’s already packed.”

“Kristin, what-”

“Trust me,” she said. He stared back at her angrily and then finally lowered the gun.

“Don’t think you’re off the hook,” Ryker said, marching up to Ignacio and poking at his chest. “I’ll be watching you.”

The sly smile on his face spread into a grin.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, there are many bedchambers here where you can watch me _very_ closely.”

“Fuck you.”

“Would you?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?” He glanced at Ortega. “I am amenable to her participation.”

“You shut the fuck up.”

“Very well, Detective.” Ignacio raised his hands in surrender. “But please, take my card.” He produced a physical copy.

Ryker shook his head and stormed out, followed by Ortega.

She paused briefly to look again at Ignacio, searching for Kovacs, for any sign of a lie. But there wasn’t one.

“Is something wrong, Lieutenant?” he said politely.

“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: TORTURE, GORE, BLOOD, YUCK

I remember the first time I died.

It was pissing rain down on the largest continent of Adriatica, Aguama. Somewhere just under the equator where the torrential rains flooded forests on the regular and the animals were all amphibious.

Constant storms meant communications were constantly down. It was our first mission after basic training and Dequin Panjiga had just stepped on a shockmine. 

Rookie mistake.

A shockmine triggered in the rain and wet would vaporise anything within a ten metre radius and burn whatever was in the next twenty. The dregs of the current caught me in the leg as I approached the bank and poured lightning through my sleeve. And to make matters worse, the enemy was hiding snipers in the trees.

Got me straight in the gut but gave away his position. Todor Murakami shot him down and dragged me out of the mud. A brief skirmish put a stop to the enemy splinter cell while I lay there, screaming in agony until the medic arrived. She stabbed a pain dampener into my chest but it still fucking hurt. Like I was burning from the inside.

 _"Tak! Can you hear me?"_ Vidaura said somewhere.

 _"I'm sorry, Captain."_ I floundered about in a pool of my own blood. _"Should have watched where I was going..."_

 _"No excuses,"_ she said, squeezing my hand. _"You're doing the tires five hundred times when you resleeve."_

_"No, I'm okay. The Doc can fix me up, right?"_

She shook her head.

 _"We don't have time for surgery, Tak,"_ Vidaura said. _”And we can't needlecast you out."_

_"No... No. I don't want to die."_

_"It's alright,"_ she said. _"Your stack's in tact. We'll cut it out and take it with us."_

_"No. No. Please don't kill me-"_

_"Shhh. Hey. Don't worry about it,"_ she smiled. _"You get to chill on ice while the rest of us trek through this shitstorm."_

 _"Captain..."_ I tried to say but blood was trickling out of my mouth, making it hard to breathe.

 _"Relax."_ She pressed the gun to my chest. _"We'll resleeve you as soon as we get to Darmana."_

And then she shot me. Straight through the heart. Big plasma burn that seared my flesh like a solar flare.

I'd lost enough blood to black out at that point and the pain alone should of put me down but it didn't. I stuck around to watch the rain as it splashed down on my face. Big dark clouds looming overhead. Or they could have been trees. Vision started blurring into black. But there was still sound.

 _"Stick it in neutral and float,"_ I heard Vidaura say. _”See you in the rerun.”_

And then I died. On my eleventh birthday.

I woke up a month later in a Protectorate Resleeving Facility like it never happened. And that's when the nightmares started. Insomnia. Mood swings. Low grade amnesia. All telltale signs of personality frag. 

Vidaura caught me spacing out a few times and took me aside. Taught me how to meditate. To block it all out and focus on the moment. It didn’t always work but I didn’t want to disappoint her. Todor would slip me a little something to take the edge off when it got really bad. It made me numb on the inside. Heartless. Empty. Exactly the kind of killing machine the Protectorate wanted.

_"You're only pretending to be one of the monsters."_

No, Quell. I'm a purebreed.

"Hey! Wake up!"

The slap of steel against my face brought me back to the present and I opened my eyes.

CTAC Praetorian was in my face with one of those bug-eyed helmets I used to wear. You’d think they’d change the design after all this time? But then again, nothing says ‘Surrender or die’ like black Praet armour and the glowing red proximity scanners. 

I spat out the blood in my mouth and sniffed.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The rifle came flying at me again but when I willed my hands to intercept, I found them bound to the ceiling by chains.

"What- NNGH!" A direct hit. More blood. "The fuck?!"

"Who do you work for?" the Praetorian hissed through the modulator. What came out was an inhuman screech, impossible to identify race, sex, gender or age.

I finally came to my senses and looked around. 

Rusty steel walls. Old. Leaking. Bulkhead door. Single light source. Six CTAC Praetorians. Delta formation.

Shit.

Looks like they found me out. I must have slipped up somewhere. Left some small detail out in the open.

If they think I'm a terrorist, they'll torture me. But they won’t let me die. They’ll stick me in virtual and spend the rest of eternity grilling me about Quellcrist Falconer.

Unless, it's not the UN. Unless, it's JakSol or whoever else I managed to piss off when I killed Rei. I bet she had an army of people like Leung ready to pick me apart..

Fuck.

"Who do you work for?!" the Praetorian growled and raised his rifle.

"Wait..." I said. "Hold on..."

He paused.

"You're not fucking real, are you?" I smiled.

The soldier thrust the rifle down, smashing my face and knocking several teeth loose. I licked them irritably and spat out the blood.

"You really don't want to do this," I warned him.

"Who do you work for?" he growled. His posture told me there was a cock between his legs. Stick up his ass. The kind CTAC shove up there in spec ops training.

"Wouldn’t you like to know?" I grinned.

He smashed the rifle into my face and I felt my jaw break.

"ssssssSee? Nau, hau ameye suposs t talk?"

He jabbed the barrel into my gut and I curled up painfully.

"Ah...ssss," I reeled. "Kan I spek to yur manajr?"

He punched me this time. Big hit in the gut that made me groan.

“Gahdss, yoo suk at dis.”

He punched me again, like a battering ram, and my jaw snapped. Awful sound. Bone scraping against bone as I turned my head back and found a barrel pointed straight at my eye.

I wrenched my mouth open and showed him the broken bloody teeth inside with the most demonic grin I could muster. The pain was blinding but it didn’t matter.

He shot me in the head.

And I died.

Again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Wake up!” Same voice. Same gun to the face.

“Ow! What is this amateur hour?”

“Who do you work for?”

I opened my eyes to find the same black armour and helmet staring back at me.

“Seriously, I want to speak to your superior. “

He thrust the barrel of the gun into my chest and pulled the trigger. Flames spilled out and my shirt and flesh caught fire. And I screamed. And screamed as it spread and melted every flake of skin and roasted the fat and sinew beneath.

“Who do you work for?!” I heard again.

“Good luck finding out, asshole!” I shouted back, pleased to find it somewhat coherent through the screaming.

I fucking hate torture. Especially bad torture. And this was poorly executed.

I was dead in minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Wake up!”

“Listen, if you’re going to hit me again, at least-”

Smashed jaw right from the start.

They don’t want to hear me talk. They keep asking who I’m working for but they don’t want the answers I’m giving them. So they probably know. Just need to confirm.

Whoever’s doing this is speeding through the first stage. Where the victim is cocky. Confident. Proud, even, to die for a just cause. That’s the kind of people that terrorists often are. The kind that need to be scared out of silence with hopelessness first.

“Who do you work for?!”

“I-”

Taser to the chest. More volts than a human body can withstand. Not something you can use in the real without damaging the stack. This is definitely virtual. And they don’t care that I know. Because the sooner I realise they can keep doing this forever, the sooner I’ll break.

My body spasms and flails wildly as electricity crackles all around. That awful zapping noise and the smell of cooked flesh. I could actually smell it this time. And I think I shit my pants. But it didn’t matter.

I was dead soon enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Wake up!”

I tried to dodge the incoming blow. It glanced off my skull but still fucking hurt.

The repetition made it all seem like an automated construct. A cycle with only slight variations. Like a tasting platter for all the different kinds of torture I can anticipate in future. A tester for which forms of torture I respond to best.

And then, when I’m beaten down and on the edge of sanity, they’ll send in an actual person to interrogate me.

They’ll take the form of this Praetorian. Or maybe one of the others. Maybe they’re already here? Monitoring me.

“So, which of you pulled the short straw?” I managed to squeeze in, before my interrogator rammed the butt of his rifle into my gut.

The other Praetorians began dragging a large trough up to the wall I was chained to. It screeched over the rusty steel floor, sloshing water over the sides.

Suddenly, the chains on my hands grew loose and I fell face-first into the murky depths. One of the Praetorians held my head down.

No air to breathe underwater. And I’d inadvertently swallowed some but was pleasantly surprised to find myself able to hold it. 

Vidaura didn’t waterboard us for nothing. 

My best time with no air was a little over fifteen minutes before the sleeve passed out from brain damage. The one I was wearing now had less lung capacity but it’s not like you need to breathe in virtual. The brain just thinks it should. It can’t separate between the virtual and the real. Stop breathing here and you stop breathing in your own body.

Unless they turn off the physical feedback. Which they would have to, if they plan on torturing me to death more than once. The only remaining risk would be aneurysm, which can be mitigated through time dilation and psychosurgery.

And these guys know that. They've done this before. They're speeding through the first stage with preset torture scenarios. Hardly breaking a sweat. And the armour on these Praetorians is surprisingly accurate. They’ve got to be CTAC. In all likelihood, covert ops.

They pulled my head out of the water and screamed in my ear. 

Watching. Waiting. But I said nothing, gulping down a breath before they shoved my head back in the water. They held me down but I didn’t resist.

I was curious to see how long I could hold my breath in the new sleeve. It was definitely something special. So many enhancements and implants. And all of it, practically invisible without a comprehensive medscan.

If only I’d held out a little longer. I could have been in and out of JakSol within an hour, tops.

I realised soon that I had no way of keeping track of time. And since I wasn’t resisting, the Praetorians had no way of telling whether I was really dead. 

Schrodinger’s Cat.

It was my favourite Micky Nozawa flick. He played an army veteran with too many implants. Half man, half machine. And there was that one scene at the end where he cut off his vitals to trick the scientists who kidnapped him into thinking he was dead.

And then he restarted his own heart and murdered them all.

I like to think I did a pretty good rendition of it at the Wei Clinic.

I remember seeing it for the first time half an hour from Gorada on Adoracion. Small town virtual theatre. Me and the boys had earned a night of reprieve from the Captain. And Todor Murakami wanted to check out the new Nozawa flick out of professional curiousity. We ended up getting drunk afterwards and trying out the moves on an unfortunate cocoa bean plantation. 

There wasn’t much left of it by dawn...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Wake up!”

“Gun to the face.” It hits and stings. “Very original.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Your mother. Her pussy’s a little sour for my taste.”

Gun to the face. 

“Ow."

“Who do you work for?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” I laughed out loud, but it was forced. Apparently, I wasn’t as resilient as I thought.

He stabbed me with a needle. A real big one, like the kind they use for bone marrow biopsy. I once had to extract some of it from a genetically enhanced swamp panther. Private contract for some corporate lab. They paid well but it swore me off animal wrangling jobs forever.

“Who do you work for?” More needles. One in the elbow. One under the fingernail. One in my thigh. Into my chest. Lymph nodes. Nerve clusters.

“You're… ssss,” I hissed, “...terrible at acupuncture.”

And then he jammed a needle in my eye. Right into the brain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey!”

“Wake up!”

Slap against my face.

“Who do you work for?” we said in unison as I grinned at him.

He brought out a block of sandpaper this time.

“Huh. That’s new.”

He tore open my shirt and went straight for the nipple.

“Aaargh!” 

Sanded it right off.

“FUCK!”

“Who do you work for?!”

“FUCK!”

“Who do you work for?” 

The raspy sound of sand and skin coming together reached my ears and I hissed something fierce. 

Another nipple gone. And in its place was flesh, rough and raw and red and bleeding.

And then the salt. A big rock of it, right in the wound.

“Kuso!” I swore.

And the Praetorian looked up. 

An unprecedented move. Everything he’d been doing up until then had been on some kind of autopilot. A preprogrammed cycle. But now, he stared.

“Who do you work for?” he said again.

“Sssss.” 

He twisted the salt rock into the wound, absorbing the blood that came gushing out.

“Who do you work for?”

“Fuck you.”

That’s when he pulled out a knife and jammed it under my skin. Caught the open wound and started flaying. 

I kicked and screamed and struggled against the chains but they only tightened around my wrists and ankles. No escape. Just pain.

_”Hallucination. Displacement. Retreat.”_

No.

No, Quell. Get out of my head. If you pop up in virtual, they’ll know. They’ll see.

“Who do you work for?”

“Nnngh…”

I let my head fall. Chin to chest. And saw the gore the Praetorian had wrought. Torn pectoralis major. Exposed rectus abdominus sheath. One of the ribs was sticking out. No. My ribs. They’re _my_ ribs. Don’t freak out now. Don’t dissociate. I can’t frag in here. 

“Who do you work for?”

I scraped the enamel off as I grit my teeth.

“No one. I’m… not…”

And then he stabbed me in the groin. 

I couldn’t even scream. Couldn’t breathe. Eyes watering. No visual. Just white. Then stars.

Don’t frag. Don’t frag. “Don’t frag.”

The Praetorian tilted his head curiously, observing for a moment. And then he twisted the knife.

“Who do you work for?”

I was too busy screaming myself hoarse to think of something witty. 

“FUCK!” seemed appropriate.

He tore the knife out, making sure to sever anything still resembling a dick. And it wasn’t pretty. Just looking down at it was painful. Psychological pain. Something I’m still not very good at dealing with.

So much for all that Envoy training. Huh, Quell?

_”You are the killer and the destroyer.”_

Doesn’t seem that way, does it?

_”You are not trapped. You’re waiting.”_

The knife slid under my heart. I felt the cold blade brush against beating muscle for an instant. And then. Nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Wake up!”

I let the rifle beat me against the face. Bruising. Slight crack in the cranium. Nothing serious.

_“Expect nothing, only then can you be ready for anything.”_

Yeah? Well, I sure wasn’t expecting this. 

Blacked out halfway through a networking course designed for the dumbest of dumbasses on Earth. Not sure if I prefer torture but I doubt I'll be getting the right qualifications at the end of this.

 _”You’re blind, Takeshi,”_ Rei tells me. _”You refuse to see.”_

I can see just fine.

“Who do you work for?!” 

Knife cut. Not deep. Probably poisoned.

_”You have the power to end this. But you’d rather wallow in your own self pity.”_

I don’t pity myself.

“Who do you work for?!”

The wound stings, like the venom of the archis cobra from the southern continent of Tameran. I look down to watch the welt implode into my stomach.

_”You feel guilty for living when everyone around you has died. You think you deserve this.”_

You’re wrong.

_”Then open your eyes.”_

“Who do you work for?!”

I look down to find the knife wound has gone purple. Parts of it are green and gangrenous. The poison is impossibly fast-acting and deadly.

This is clearly virtual, but I’m still feeling pain.

_”Sloppy, Tak. Where’s that Envoy Cool?”_

Leave me alone, Vidaura. 

Wait…

“Who do you work for?”

The Praetorian stabbed me again.

“Nnngh…” I groaned. “I’m starting to think you don’t like me.”

He pulled the knife out slowly but the blood coming out wasn’t red. It was black and I sighed.

Not long now.

“Who do you work for?”

That’s a good question...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey!”

“I’m awake, I’m awake.”

He hit me in the face anyway. Full marks for consistency.

“You’re not getting a lot out of me, though. How about we just chat?”

He picked up a red hot poker from the smelting furnace nearby.

“How did that get in here?”

It was on me before I could say anything else. Right in the kneecap. I couldn’t help but scream.

“Who do you work for?”

“FAAARK…”

“Who do you work for?”

He drove the poker in and the heat melted through skin and did a number on the muscles and nerve endings before it reached bone, then sizzled to a stop.

“AaARRGH!”

“Who do you work for?”

 _“Listen up, reruns!”_ Virginia Vidaura shouted at the crowd of strangers from a crude raised platform. _"You're here because you're not completely useless. You're here because you've shown grit and integrity in the face of real death. And I'm here to teach you how to use all that to serve the Protectorate."_

Hands on hips, she grinned down at us. Day one inductions.

“Since it is logistically impossible to expect everything, we will teach you not to expect anything. That way, you will be ready for it," she explained. 

"From now on, every day you wake up, you will see a stranger in the mirror. You will die with the same casual attitude as you take a shit. And you will fight without reservation, without fear and without mercy."

"We will carve you into weapons the Protectorate will use to defend itself. And, of course, we'll pay you handsomely for your time." 

I opened my eyes and there she was, grinning down at me from the soapbox. 

The Praetorians that were so busy torturing me a second ago turned to look.

"Welcome to the Colonial Tactical Assault Corp. My name is Virginia Vidaura and your DHF is officially my property."

There was an awkward silence as they all stared at the woman in chameleochrome coveralls and black military boots. And then I realised, they could see her too.

“Shit.”

”Tired, Takeshi.” Virginia waggled a finger at me. “CTAC don’t get taken apart by local law enforcement.”

Sorry, Captain.

I deconstruct the chain around my ankles and kick the poker in the closest Praetorian’s hands, straight into his helmet. Leaves a massive welt and catches him off guard. He reels as the poker clangs to the floor. I wrap my legs around his neck and squeeze, cutting off his air supply. And then my hands are free.

I flip forward and the Praetorian comes with me. Flying toward the others who scatter and roll.

I grab the rifle one of them holds and shove it into their helmet, disrupting optics and disorienting the occupant. Pull back and wrench the weapon from their grasp. Lean back to dodge a hot poker. Duck forward to dodge bullets. Finger on the trigger. Fire once. Twice. Praetorian drops dead.

I roll and come up to smash the rifle into another’s head. He falls into the furnace. I side-step, swivel and kick his feet apart, pull him off balance. Another sweep of gunfire and I flatten my body against the ground. Lift the rifle and spray backwards.

Auditory response. Pain. Hit.

Roll back and over my head. Onto my feet. Regain grip. Reload. Finger on the trigger. Fire. Fire. Fire. Until there’s only a bloody mass of bodies all around.

The Neurachem keeps me tense and on my toes. The massive hole in my knee wasn’t really there so it was easy enough to ignore. The room itself was empty, sealed off by a heavy bulkhead.

I took a step back.

And then someone started clapping.

I turned to find another Praetorian had appeared in the room. A small-scale short-stay construct that spawned its occupants in the same place every time.

I raised the rifle in my hands but he didn’t stop clapping.

And then I heard the bulkhead behind me creaking open. The rusted levers screeching from years of disuse. The door swinging open on its hinges to flood the room with light too bright for me to see.

I moved aside, wall to my back to keep the enemy in view. I held up my hand to shield my eyes against the white light. And squinting, I saw, a familiar silhouette. One I’d encountered in the mirror in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

The sly little smile played on his face as he walked in and stopped quite close to examine me in turn.

“Señor Kovacs, I presume?” he said, offering me his hand. 

I glanced down at it apprehensively.

“You motherfucker,” I said.

“I am many things, Señor Kovacs. But that is not one of them.”

“You’re double-stacked.” I shook my head.

“Very astute of you to observe. As to be expected of an Envoy, of course.”

“I’m not an Envoy. Not anymore.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” the Praetorian’s modulated voice rings out.

I turn to see him raise his hands and pull off the helmet. The red glowing scanners go dark and the flesh beneath the mask is revealed. Tan skin. Black hair. Asian sleeve. But not anyone I recognise.

“Hisashiburi dana… nii-chan.”

“Eh?” I burst out. “Dare?”

“Nante zannen, Takeshi…”

“What the fuck is going on?!”

“What’s going on is that you sniped my fucking sleeve out from under me,” he said, hand on his hip, the other wrapped around the helmet.

I turned back to look at my doppelganger.

“Yes. You seem to have disrupted our arrangement,” he said to me.

I shook my head.

“You two are working together. And the sleeve - it was slated for CTAC coverts ops.”

“That’s right,” the Praetorian said.

“Well, you fucked up.”

“No. _You_ fucked me over, Takeshi. I’ve been planning this op for months.” He took a step forward. “Got Ignacio arrested at just the right time. Put myself in the queue to resleeve and you slip in like Micky fucking Nozawa in Mars Madness and shit the bed.”

“Fuck,” I said. “Tod?”

“In the virtual flesh.”

“Todor fucking Murakami?”

“Finally. Baby Tak is catching on.”

“Do not call me that, ever, again.”

“Aaaw, Baby Tak gonna cry?” he grinned. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I pushed him away.

“The Ascertainment was merely a formality.” He shrugged. “We had to make sure you weren’t Quell bait.” 

“You call this an Ascertainment?!”

“Did you think CTAC would just sit you down for o-cha and wagashi while they quizzed you on your past sleeves?”

“You didn’t have to fucking castrate me!”

“You’ve seen worse,” Tod shrugged. “Besides, I knew you weren’t a traitor.”

“I gunned down my entire squad, Tod...”

He chuckled at that. "What I wouldn’t give to vape the idiots I have to work with sometimes,” he said. “But you were actually crazy enough to do it.” 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I said.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

“I’m, uh… working a private contract.”

“Uh-huh. The kind that needs a hyper-teched up sleeve like Ignacio’s?” he smirked. “No way. That’s not your style.”

“You haven’t seen me in two hundred and fifty years, Tod. People change.”

“Sure, they do. But we’re not people, Takeshi. We’re CTAC and we’re Praetorians. Covert and black ops.”

“I’m not CTAC.”

“Could have fooled me.” He glanced around at the dead soldiers.

The bodies disappeared one by one, and then reappeared in the same Delta formation from the beginning. But then, they dropped the guns and started pulling off helmets. 

I didn’t recognise a single sleeve but they sure as hell knew me.

“Still fights like a swamp panther,” one of them chuckled.

“Kimura?”

“Yo.” He grinned. “Hisashiburi, Kovacs-kun.”

“Holy shit. Who else you got here?”

“This is Olenko.” Murakami pointed to the fair-haired, dark-skinned sleeve. “Nguyen’s in there.” He pointed to the Islander. “Palecki and Townsend in these.” He pointed to the Ugandan skinheads. They looked related. “And Tomaselli’s in this one.” The redhead grinned.

“Fuck…” I said, dropping the rifle sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Well, that’s a fucking first,” Nguyen said. “Since when do you apologise?”

“You work for the Yak long enough...” I shrugged.

“Don’t get all sentimental on us, Tak,” Tod said. “‘Fess up. What are you doing on Earth?”

I sighed and blew out an exasperated breath, eyeing my doppelganger wearily.

“Look. Someone’s paying me to dig up dirt on JakSol,” I lied. “No dippers can penetrate their satellites worth a damn and their security is so tight every hacker from here to Sharia has broken their jack trying to crack it.”

“I know,” Tod said. “That’s why I’m going after them too.”

“What?”

“Protectorate wants to know what secrets JakSol is keeping locked up in their towers. Even with Kawahara dead, they refuse to open up until the court proceedings are over. And that could take decades.”

“So they sent in CTAC?” I guessed.

“Yep. And yours truly is leading this op.”

“Congratulations,” I said sarcastically. “Except for the part where I resleeved into your cracker.”

Ignacio’s little smile wilted.

“Yeah, that did throw a spanner in the works,” Todor said. “But we take what we’re given and when I found out it was _you?”_ He grinned. “Well… that changed things.”

“Why did you need someone with a double stack, anyway?”

“JakSol only interviews candidates one at a time. And only employ those that pass a rigorous background check.”

“So…”

“Your little secret identity? Martin Sinclair or whatever? Would have been flagged the moment you stepped into the building.”

“That was UN sanctioned.”

“They would have seen that too. They’re coders and intelligence brokers, not just corporate suits.”

“Right…”

“Ignacio, on the other hand-” Murakami pointed to him. “-is one of the top Fixers in six systems.”

“Cute.”

“Thank you,” he smiled.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“He’s got the background and the expertise,” Todor said, “for JakSol to put him on retainer.”

“Sooo… you get an inside man. Why the double stack?”

“Usually CTAC would never allow an outsider to be the primary. But in the case of JakSol, we need Ignacio’s stack to be the one they scan. If all goes well, they’ll put him on the payroll. And that’s when we move into Phase 2.”

“Recon.”

“Sou desu.” He nodded. “We case the joint from the inside. Data mine what we can without arousing suspicion. And once we’re ready and JakSol get comfortable. We move onto Phase 3.”

“Data heist.”

“Exactly.”

“Ignacio retrieves the data and you keep the body active while he’s under. If there’s trouble, you’ve got the combat expertise to overcome it and make an exit.”

“Woah, woah, woah, hold on a minute. You want _me,_ on this op?”

“You’re already wearing the sleeve,” he shrugged. “We want the same thing here. And I’m sure the Protectorate would pay you handsomely for your assistance.”

“I’m already on a job.”

“Alone?” he smirked. “Paid on delivery, huh?”

“It is what it is.”

“Listen, Tak. You’re good at combat. But computer systems are constantly evolving. You have to be up to the latest, last minute trends to compete with JakSol. And you’ve been on ice, what? Three centuries?”

“I’m a fast learner.”

“Ignacio has been running this shit since he was fourteen,” Todor said. “You should see his processing speed. He’s like a walking mainframe.”

“But he’s not a combat specialist,” I gathered.

“I am not helpless in a fight,” Ignacio said. “But this heist will require my utmost concentration. And I would very much appreciate a partner that knows how to keep me safe.”

“There’s no one more deadly than CTAC black ops in the Protectorate,” Todor said. “Except maybe an Envoy. And luckily, we’ve got both.”

“Can’t really say no, can I?” I sighed.

“Nope.” Tod put an arm around my shoulders. “You walked right into my op, Takeshi. You’d better believe I’m going to make you do your fair share.”

“Uh-huh…”

“And who knows? Maybe you’ll wanna stick around?”

“I’m a traitor to the Protectorate.”

“You’re CTAC to the bone, nii-chan. Only reason you ran off to join the Envoys is Virginia Vidaura and her Little Blue Bugs.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve been clutching onto Vidaura’s coveralls since the first day they resleeved you.”

“Don’t pretend you understand what I’ve been through.”

“You think I haven’t seen what Jaeger did to Stronghold?” Todor smirked. “You think I don’t know Vidaura got fragged with Rawling?”

“Then how are you all still working for CTAC?”

“Like you said, it’s not that simple,” he smiled. “But maybe if we pull this off, I just might tell you.”

“You’re the worst,” I said but he only grinned wider.

He grabbed my hair and rubbed his armoured fist in it.

“That’s Lieutenant Murakami to you, grunt.”


	9. Chapter 9

Ortega dumped her bag on the floor and stripped off the jacket, tiredly draping it over the chair by the bed. Ryker wandered into the bathroom to splash his face with water and found himself staring blankly into the mirror. 

There was no sign of the broken jaw Ortega had given him. The skin was newer, healthier and lacking the characteristically sallow complexion often associated with long time residents of Bay City, or even the freshly resleeved. It looked healthy for a change. And the scars on his face were gone.

He rubbed at his eyebrow timidly, feeling for the deep cut he was so used to being there, but it wasn’t. It felt weird somehow. Like a memory had been stripped away. And he didn’t want to lose any more.

He shook his head finally and shrugged off the coat. The rattle of tet ampoules sent a jolt of fear through his jittery Neurachem soaked flesh and he quickly wrapped a fist around the vials. 

He turned to see if Ortega had heard but she was too busy stripping off her trappings to care.

He pulled one of the ampoules out and stared at it. 

Tetrameth wasn’t something he used regularly. It was a standard upper but the hangover wasn’t as bad as something like SynChet or Torque. It was supposed to heighten the senses, shut off pain receptors in the brain. He’d tried it once back in high school with little to no effect. But he wasn’t in pain back then. And he had a migraine now. Jaw replacement that could be felt gnawing away at his mouth. He couldn’t even bring his teeth together without wincing.

And there was that craving. What it was he couldn’t put his finger on. It wasn’t a feeling he’d ever experienced before. It ate into his brain and dulled his senses and even blurred his vision.

Maybe, a little tet wouldn’t hurt?

“You finished in there?” Ortega called out as Ryker deliberated.

“Uuh… almost.” 

He unscrewed the cap and dropped a single dose into his eye, blinking it away just as quickly.

“All yours,” he said, wandering into the bedroom.

“Thanks.” Ortega wandered past in little more than a BCPD t-shirt and Elias couldn’t help but smile.

“Nice to see some things haven’t changed.”

She smirked and shook her head as she disappeared into the bathroom. 

“Did you brush your teeth?” she called back.

“...”

“Elias?”

“...”

She poked her head out when he didn’t respond. He was standing in the middle of the room, motionless, coat in one arm.

“Elias?” She walked over slowly.

His face was blank, staring sightlessly into space.

She touched his hand, wary of her own strength this time, but he didn’t react.

“Elias, can you hear me?”

His mouth opened and moved but not much came out and then he turned his head and looked at her soberly. 

“What?”

“Are you okay?” Kristin said.

“Yeah.” He dumped his coat on the chair. “Fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

He wandered over to the closet, exceptionally aware of the colours in every garment and the feel of the fabric on his skin. He brushed his fingers over a chest of drawers and pulled out an old t-shirt, only to find himself standing there, feeling it, for several minutes.

“Come on,” Ortega said, taking his wrist. “Let’s get you undressed.”

“I can do it myself.”

“Mmhmm…” Ortega smirked, unbuttoning five buttons in the time it took him to finish one. Their fingers met on the last and Ryker refused to let go, bringing her hands up to his face, so soft, and delicate. Except when they weren’t.

He brushed a finger up the side of her neck and under her chin and leaned forward, yearning to touch her lips with his own but she held him back.

“Alright, lover boy. Get your clothes off.”

“Wow,” he said sourly. “You’ve got to be the only woman on Earth that can make that sound unsexy.” 

Kristin smirked and shoved him playfully onto the bed. He sat down to let her pull the shirt off his back and then collapsed onto the sheets, letting the tet wash through him.

He felt Ortega unzip his fly and yank the pants off. And then something landed on his face and everything went dark. But it wasn’t uncomfortable and he was content to lie there for a while, free of craving and pain.

It suddenly became very bright as Ortega lifted the t-shirt off his face. Her own visage blurred into view. The colour of honey and caramel. He wasn’t sure why he was coming up with food references.

His hand drifted up her thigh, skin smoother than anything his calloused hands had ever touched and he feared he might scratch the perfect surface for a moment but the smell of her body soon reached him. The sweat clawing through antiperspirant. Tobacco caught in her hair from his own smoking. That pungent smell of the bullpen where they’d spent most of the day drinking coffee and wrestling lowlifes into cells. It all smelled so familiar. Like home.

He leaned forward into her chest and breathed in deep, hands wrapping around her waist and running down to her cheeks.

“God, you smell good.”

“I smell like I need a shower.”

“... so good…”

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

“I want you.” He pressed his lips into the t-shirt, feeling the softness of her breast underneath.

“You need to rest.”

“Mmm…” he pressed again, into her areola, squeezing the nipple until it hardened.

“Ey, did you hear what I just said?”

“Mmhmm…” His lips journeyed higher, up to her shoulder and across to her neck, her cheek, her ear.

“Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Just that kind of asshole, I guess,” he whispered. “You gonna reprimand me, Lieutenant?”

“You are way past reprimand, Ryker,” she smirked at him.

He finally reached her lips and they pressed into his own as they kissed. Her fingers carved trails into his hair and her tongue painted his mouth with fluoride.

He felt himself growing hard and thread his thumbs into Ortega’s briefs, sliding them down her spread thighs as they kissed, so deeply, he thought they might fuse together.

And then, a little strength returned to him. The busted old Neurachem fired up, amplified by the tet and he rolled Ortega onto her back. He could hear her heart beating, her chest expanding with every hushed breath, like a gale in his ears.

He pressed his thumb into the corner of her smile and kissed her again. Once. Twice. But then she turned away. 

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered. “The doctor said…”

“Fuck him,” Ryker growled. “No, wait. Fuck me.” 

Ortega grinned widely and shook her head.

Elias brushed away her seldom free hair, revealing the soft skin on her neck and dove in to press his lips into the tender opening. 

Kristin twitched, tickled into squeezing her ear down to her shoulder and sandwiched his face in between. But he didn’t stop. 

“Ryker, if I-” she laughed, “-have to walk into the bullpen with a hickey...”

He stopped.

“You’ll what?” he grinned. 

She shook her head, unable to conceal the smile. 

“Mind if I help you with these?” He pulled her briefs down, pressing his lips into her long legs as he went.

Kristin tried not to giggle with every kiss but once he reached her toes, it was over.

“Stop it! You know that tickles.” 

He leaned onto the bed, pulling off his own underwear. 

“Well, then. Let’s skip to the part that doesn’t.” 

He was fully erect now. So much that it hurt a little downstairs but the touch of her skin was still so alluring. The softness of her thigh as he brushed his fingers against it and traced the shape of her leg, all the way up to-

“Ah…” Ortega gasped.

“Hello…”

“Don’t you d- ah!”

He pressed his lips against skin and hair, tongue rubbing against the tiny bump that pulsed back and Kristin twitched, arching her back as her clit kicked like a mule. 

Ryker held her hips, limiting her movement, keeping her steady while his own cock grew painfully tight. He felt the Neurachem tense every nerve ending in his body and when Kristin started gasping, he let her clit go. 

He pushed his dick into the wet opening between her legs and grabbed at the sheets either side of her head, clenching his fists, trying to fight the urge to cum and it was a hard fought battle. The first few strokes were close calls. The shaft was more swollen than he’d ever seen it and the tightness was painful, maddening even through the tet, but the feeling of her body rubbing against his own was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. And it drowned out everything else.

The tet and the Neurachem made it feel like fireworks, shooting through nerve endings and muscles, blood pumping so hard he thought he might burst. The guttural growls escaping his mouth vibrated through the air, rattling the bed with each thrust and Kristin wrapped her legs around his hips, hands clutching desperately at his shoulder blades for purchase. 

Her heart beat through her ears, deafening and loud. Her eyes were closed and every breath was a soft gasp for air, for reprieve she didn’t want. And her body demanded more.

“Harder…” she managed and Ryker redoubled his efforts, straining the Neurachem. But all it took was one tiny jolt through his neck to push him over the edge. 

He collapsed as he came inside her, moaning and twitching. His spinal cord contracting painfully, sending shocks through every nerve all the way out to his extremities. And he couldn’t move.

Kristin sighed, her body humming with euphoria but the weight of Ryker on top of her was pressing down hard.

“Elias…” she whispered, trying to regain her senses. “Hey…” she slapped his arm.

“Nnngh.”

“Are you okay?”

“Nn… n-neck.”

“Muerde.” 

She pushed hard and rolled him onto his back. 

“Does it hurt?”

“Mmm.”

“Fuck! I told you not to push it.” She slid off.

“I’ll call the doctor.” She tapped her ONI.

“No…” He reached out for her hand shakily. “I’m fine.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

“You taste so good…”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“Caramel and honey...”

“Are you on SynChet again?” She checked his eyes.

“No… where would I even get SynChet?”

“You’re high,” she realised, hand on hip.

“It’s just a little tet,” Ryker said weakly. “Courtesy of your pal, Kovacs.”

“Kovacs?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Must have been high as a kite when he went up there.” He pointed gingerly. “Head in the Clouds.”

Ortega shook her head and turned off the ONI.

“You’re a real piece of work,” she said, marching into the bathroom.

“Was he better than me?” Ryker called after her. 

She slammed the door shut and sat down on the toilet, head in her hands.

“Joder…”

Some part of her knew this would happen. Some part of her expected to be disappointed while the other accepted it as inevitable. Even prepared a twelve step program to deal with it, but why bother?

Ryker was never going to change.

He was a junkie, looking for a fix. If he wasn’t beating down criminals, it was tobacco or whatever garbage he could find and apparently, getting put on ice hadn’t changed that.

 _“Give him time. Patience. He’ll come around,”_ Kovacs had said. _“Or maybe, he won’t. It’s your call.”_

“Yeah, thanks,” she smirked, finishing her business. She flushed it away and wandered over to the shower to wash off the cum stains on her legs.

For all his faults, Ryker was still a good fuck. 

There was a reason no fight had ever been the last. Much to her mother’s disapproval. But now, Kristin wondered whether she had been right all along.

She knew Ryker was an addict, with few prospects other than getting kicked off the force. And yet, she stayed. She stayed for his stupid ass, every time.

_”I love you, Kristin.”_

It had been so easy to say “I love you” back but now it felt like it was stuck in her throat. And every time she felt Ryker thrusting, she couldn’t help thinking about Kovacs. 

_“...puta…”_ she muttered through shower water, hand wandering over the scar at the back of her neck.

Why was everything so complicated?

Why couldn’t everything just go back to the way it was?

She knew the answer, of course. 

It was the world Kovacs had shown her. The one that existed outside the status quo. Where she helped bring down three Meths the entire galaxy had deemed untouchable. A world where anything was possible. And perhaps, if that were true, then Ryker could, in fact, change.

Kristin sighed.

She couldn’t toss him out now. Not onto the street. It was partially her fault that he was in pain. So much that he took the damn tetrameth right in front of her. And fucking Kovacs…

“Urrgh…” she growled, climbing out of the shower to aggressively dry her hair. “Hijo de puta.”

She wrapped a towel around herself and slipped out into the bedroom to find Ryker asleep.

“Figures,” she whispered grumpily, wandering past him.

She picked out some clothes and changed, stopping to examine the coat Ryker had left on the chair. A quick search of the pockets revealed the offending ampoules of tetrameth. Tiny serpent on the label.

 _”Small time tet dealers…”_ Ryker had said. _“Two-bit freakshow with slit-eye augments.”_

It was definitely the Hook End Vipers’ product. And if Ryker took the vials from the room Kovacs was staying in, then the Vipers must have been there, in the hotel, just like Bunda said.

_“I’m telling you, the Patchwork man’s in there. He’s gonna blow your stack if you go in there!”_

Ortega shivered, remembering the darkness, the shadows, the shoe print. Ignacio. No. Kovacs. He was watching her, following them. Considering whether to kill them or not.

She wondered briefly what would have happened if Ryker or any other cop had gone in there alone, to the Raven Hotel. 

A massacre, she imagined. Blood and bodies. All that was left of her family after Leung...

Ortega swallowed and turned around to look at the bed. Ryker was snoring placidly in his birthday suit so she tossed a blanket over him.

Kovacs had put on a show, pretending to be Ignacio to avoid a confrontation between them. Envoys could mimic voices, dialects, accents, ten minutes into resleeving. Combat ready in five. It would be child’s play to think up something like that on the spot.

But he’d given her a business card. Did that mean he wanted her to call him? Privately?

What else could it mean?

He hadn’t answered the emergency line.

She sighed and slipped the ONI band onto her wrist, sneaking downstairs for privacy. She dialled the number on the card and waited for the call to go through with bated breath. But no one answered.

_“You have reached Ignacio Dominguez dello Fuego, please leave a message after the tone.”_

“Emmm, hello… Ignacio? This is Lieutenant Kristin Ortega. I have some follow up questions regarding the Raven Hotel. Please contact me on this frequency to arrange a meeting.”

She tapped her ONI to hang up and found herself standing in the middle of the lounge room. She decided to sit. 

Her hand drifted over the sofa absently. She remembered cauterising wounds on Ryker’s body on nights just like these. When he’d come home from a fight he didn’t need to be in. When he saved somebody nobody else cared about. They couldn’t thank him for it or pay him for it. They were people the police simply couldn’t help.

She remembered patching up Kovacs, too. He’d failed to notice his sleeve leaking blood like a tap. And those eyes. Cocky and mischievous, one second. Tender and innocent, the next. She still couldn’t pin him down. How he could care for her and the Elliots and Ryker and simultaneously slaughter so many. 

_“You have a type, Kristin,”_ her father had said some time during high school.

He was right. Kristin was pathologically attracted to danger and idiots.

She sighed as she turned on the holocoil to quietly check the news. It had become habit to monitor the progress of the Bancroft and Kawahara cases. To see the miracle of legislation against Meths taking place. 

They had an army of lawyers prepared, of course, but the evidence against them was damning and it wasn’t going anywhere. Ava Elliot had spread it far and wide through the Array. Planets as far as Harlan’s World would get to see the horrors they committed in high def VR. And Kristin only hoped it would be enough to change the world.

She woke up wrapped in a familiar blanket, with a pillow under her head. She sighed awake and rubbed her eyes, searching her surroundings for the origin and found Ryker eating cereal on the couch opposite.

“Hey,” he said, crunching a spoonful. 

Kristin smirked.

“What?” He stared through the holocoil. “You want some?”

She shook her head.

“You want an apology.”

She nodded.

“Okay. I'm sorry.”

“And?”

“And…” he sighed. “I’ll try to not disappoint you again.”

Kristin rolled her eyes.

“Every time, Elias. Every fucking time,” she said, getting up off the couch.

"Yeah, I know."

"You're going to quit," she said.

"Well, I'm glad you're so confident."

"I'm serious. I signed you up for a sobriety program. Your first meeting is tomorrow." 

"Kristin..."

"That's an order," she said. "From your Lieutenant."

"You're not technically my Lieutenant right now?"

She glared at him.

"Alright. Fine. Just don't do the stare."

She hardened up for a moment and then relaxed. It would have to do for now.

“How are you feeling?” she said, brushing a hand past his shoulder.

“Better,” he said. “Everything’s a little shiny, though. Like this spoon.” He stared at it.

“Ready to head back to work?” she sighed.

“It’s Thursday,” he said. 

She turned to look at him.

“Your day off, right?”

“It’s Sunday and Monday now.”

“Oh…” He looked down at the empty bowl of cereal. “Guess, I’d better get dressed.”

She nodded, wandering into the kitchen to make breakfast and check her ONI.

The message overlay popped up on top of some cheese. She scrolled through the inbox habitually, most of them were auto-generated reports filed at the precinct. There were some forwarded messages from the Captain. A note from Bautista about murder weapon forensics. And a message from Ignacio.

She tapped her ONI so fast it glitched.

_“Lieutenant Ortega,_  
_I would be glad to meet with you to discuss my business at the Raven Hotel at any time of your choosing. Perhaps over dinner? Together with your partner, as well? I look forward to hearing from you._  
_Kind Regards,_  
_Ignacio Dominguez dello Fuego_  
_Despejado Cleaning Services”_

Kristin stared at the words, hardly believing they could come from Kovacs. But, she supposed, there had to be a reason he was sticking so adamantly to this new persona.

 _“I’m free Sundays and Mondays,”_ she sent back and let her wrist fall, but as soon as it did, she felt it buzz with a notification.

_“Then I shall be glad to see you and Detective Ryker at the Flying Fish restaurant at 5:45pm this Sunday.”_

Kristin smiled.

_”It’s a date.”_

Ryker dressed quickly, shrugging on the long coat from the day before. Ortega was wearing one of her day suits when they left the apartment. It was pouring rain again and Ryker hugged Kristin close to keep her from getting too soaked. Umbrellas did little in the sideswept downpour and he was drenched by the time they got to the aircar.

“Jeez…” he squelched as he sat down. 

“They put in an automatic dryer at the precinct.”

“Didn’t we already have a dryer?”

“Yeah, but this one actually works.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The ride was swift and the sprint for the stairwell swifter. They left a trail of water all the way down to the offices and one of the cleaner-bots locked onto Elias, labelling him a hazard.

He kicked it away as they entered the precinct and Ortega pointed out the steel arch in the foyer. The device miraculously worked, absorbing the moisture from their clothing and not their skin as the old one was prone to do. And both of them emerged, incredibly dry on the other end and ready to start the day. Ryker, less so.

“You’re not gonna put me on coffee duty again, are you?”

“After yesterday’s coffee run, I think you are the last person I would ask to bring me coffee, Elias.”

He grinned slyly as they approached her desk and found a new one had appeared beside it. 

“What’s this?” Kristin asked Bautista.

“Hmm?” He looked up. “Oh. No idea. Good morning, by the way.”

“Morning,” Ryker said. “Anything happen last night?”

“I was about to ask you the same question.” He cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh...” Kristin faultered, “we-”

“-checked out the Raven Hotel. Place is spotless.”

“Someone hire a cleaner?”

“Yeah, we met the guy. Ignatio Domingo dello something.”

“Dello Fuego?” Bautista said incredulously. “The fucking fixer?”

“I guess,” Ryker smirked. “He some hot shot?”

“The man worked for the NeoCatholic Church,” Bautista said. “Cleanup after the Archdiocese, you don’t get a better gig than that.”

“Well, apparently he’s taken a contract to clean the Raven Hotel.”

“And you don’t think that’s suspicious?”

“Of course, we do,” Ortega said. “We asked all the questions we could think of and he gave me his number.”

“You have his number?” Bautista’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, we’re going to dinner with him on Sunday.”

 **“What?”** Elias and Rodrigo said simultaneously.

“Ryker!” Tanaka called across the office.

“Yeah?” He turned his head.

“My office.”

“Always with the office…” he sighed, turning on his heel. Ortega went with him.

“Not you, Lieutenant.”

She stopped in her tracks.

“You’ve got work to do.”

She gave him an odd look and then turned to Ryker.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, squeezing her hand.

“Okay.” She let him go, watching each step he took toward Tanaka.

“What do you think it’s about?” she asked Rodrigo.

“No idea.” He shrugged. “So about dello Fuego…”

Ryker disappeared into the glass partition before he could hear the rest. Tanaka sat down and the walls went opaque, isolating them from the outside.

“What? You put a hit on me or something?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Tanaka said. “Just the rest of Bay City, it seems. Both Aerium and grounders have it out for you.”

“Haven’t met any Aerium folk yet,” Ryker shrugged.

“They’re not big on meetings,” Tanaka said, “especially down here. No, they work through enough middle men that their hands won’t get so much as a drop of blood on them.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I spoke to Bautista about the incident yesterday.”

“The girl?”

“Yes. Jin Sheifong.”

“She okay?”

“She’s doing better now that the chip in her brain has been removed.” He placed a vial with a metal strip down on the desk.

“What?” Ryker said, picking it up.

“New technology,” Tanaka explained. “Some form of mind control. Hypersuggestion. They’re testing it on people now.”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“Whoever’s doing it wants your head, Ryker. You need to be careful.”

He sighed.

“If one more person tells me to ‘stay in bed’ and ‘take it easy’ I'm gonna spit in their face, Tanaka. I’d rather go down fighting than live in a bubble.”

“I thought you’d say that,” he nodded.

“Sooo? That’s it?”

“No.” The Captain opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a badge. “I want you to work this case.”

Ryker locked eyes with him for a moment.

“Why?”

“Whoever’s financing all of this is clearly a Meth. And somewhere among all the middle men is someone that has it out for you. That’s your in.”

“I’m the bait?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

Ryker opened his mouth but paused, turning his head.

“The Lieutenant…”

“... would never agree to this, which is why we’re speaking in private. I wanted to offer you the job without her interference because I know how protective she can be.”

Ryker nodded.

“Yeah…”

“She can’t know about this investigation,” Tanaka said. “I’m giving you some smaller property theft cases to deal with on the side but this one stays ‘confidential’. No-one but you and me inside the precinct knows about it. Understand?”

Ryker nodded.

Tanaka sighed and reluctantly passed him the badge.

“Don’t make me regret it,” he said.

“I won’t.”

“And here’s your firearm.” Tanaka placed the Beretta on the table. _“Please,_ use discretion.”

Ryker nodded again.

“I report everything to you?”

“Every lead, every shred of evidence, every witness. You do not go outside the precinct, above or below me. When the time comes, we will act on the evidence we have.”

Ryker nodded.

“Case file?”

“It’s in your desk.”

Elias sighed.

“Okay.”

And started to get up.

“Do I get an aircar?” he said suddenly.

“After you pay me back for the last three squad cars you totalled.”

“Mmm. Fair enough.”

The glass walls turned transparent again and Ryker left the office without smashing the door closed this time.

“What was that about?” Ortega asked worriedly as soon as he was in earshot.

“Gave me my badge back,” Elias smiled, holding it up. “And a gun.”

“Oh, Elias. Congratulations.” She hugged him tight. “You see? You _can_ get back on the horse.”

“I’ve never seen a horse but I'll take your word for it.”

“Congratulations,” Bautista clapped him on the shoulder. “Bit sudden but... who am I to judge, eh?”

“Did he say why?”

“Wants me to ease into it. Put me on Property Theft for a while.”

“Well, that sounds perfect. You’ve got a nose like a bloodhound,” Ortega said. “You’ll be back in OrgDam in no time.”

“Thanks.”

“And you’ll be right next to me and Rodrigo.”

“Yep.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t pout.”

“I’m not pouting.” He sat down at his new desk. The surface was practically sterile.

He tapped the keys and the screen lit up, scanning his face and fingerprints.

DETECTIVE ELIAS RYKER//FELL ST//BCPD ----------------Login successful

And the cases popped up. Around twenty petty theft crimes a beat cop would usually look into.

“Oh, these should be easy,” Ortega said, peering over his shoulder. “You’ll be done before lunch.”

He gave her a tiny smile in response and she pecked his cheek.

“Well, we’ll leave you to it,” Rodrigo said, wandering away.

They left him be and Elias scrolled down to the very bottom to find no more cases. There was a message from Tanaka, though. 

DATAPAD. FIRST DRAWER. RIGHT HAND SIDE. DELETE THIS MESSAGE.

Message deleted.

Elias pulled open the drawer and removed the datapad inside. It was one of the older ones that didn’t require a connection to the Array. Waterproof, hard as a brick. There was a sticky note on the back.

PASSWORD IS YOUR MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME. DESTROY THIS NOTE.

He shoved it in his mouth and chewed through the papery square, yearning for a cup of coffee to wash it down. 

He wandered over to the automat and typed in the password while he waited for it to pour. The old datapad slowly booted up by the time he got back and showed him the single case file on its hard drive.

Elias selected it and kicked his feet up onto the desk, waiting for it to load. The glistening shine on the objects around him was fading away. And the many colours he’d grown used to seeing so vividly turned dull, almost grey.

The file finally loaded and he read through it slowly.

Several cases of chips found inside grounders below the poverty line. No memory of implant. No memory of aggressive behaviours exhibited. Chips have no manufacturer details. Technology is new, unpatented. Variations found in different carriers. At least three of the victims came from the Slums in Bay City.

“Hmmm,” Elias smirked. 

He grew up in the Slums. Tanaka knew that. Got out through military service and came back too fucked up to work anywhere but the police department, which ought to have clued in the civvies as to the qualifications of their local law enforcement officers.

Half the mohicans in the station were either cronies or bullies, taking the easy cases, scrambling for Meth jobs when they could get them, just itching to find a patron. 

It made him want to puke.

No, the reason Tanaka gave him this job wasn’t the big target painted on the back of his head. It was the connection to the Slums, the poor people who didn’t have enough to get by. Those that would agree to brain surgery for a few credits and a hot meal. They’d tell you anything you wanted to hear. Anything but the truth. And it was his job to get it out of them.

Elias sighed.

He didn't like the idea. And he didn't trust Tanaka. Not after everything he'd done. This could all just as easily be a setup. But at least he had his badge back. And he’d been meaning to head up to Richmond anyway. There was someone he wanted to see.

He stowed the datapad in his coat pocket and got to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Ortega said quickly.

“To work a case,” he smiled at her.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own? Do you want me to come with you?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just down the street.”

“Well, alright,” Kristin said. “Call me if you need me.”

“Will do.”

And with that, he disappeared. Back to work.


End file.
